my perp workflow is 90% plumbing, 10% actual trading

been doing perps for about two years now and the thing nobody warned me about is how much of the job is just... plumbing. rough shape of my process right now: - i don't touch a position until my sizing is already decided. i keep a little sheet with max notional per pair, and if the pair isn't on the sheet i don't trade it that session. sounds boring, it is boring, it's the only reason i still have an account - entries are usually manual but exits are automated. i learned the hard way that i'm a completely different person at 3am with a position open than i am when i'm writing the plan - every automation gets a kill condition. not a stop, a kill condition — if the thing hasn't behaved the way i expected within a set window, it flattens and i go look at it with fresh eyes - i log every fill, including partials, and once a week i go read the log. mostly i'm looking for the trades i don't remember taking. those are the ones that cost me the part i'm still not happy with is reconnect behaviour. if my connection drops mid-position i want to know exactly what state everything is in when it comes back, and right now that reconciliation is more manual than i'd like. i basically stare at the position list and compare it to what i think should exist. works fine until i'm tired, which is when it matters. the other thing i keep going back and forth on is funding. i check it before entering but i don't really *plan* around it, and on slower holds that feels sloppy. curious if anyone actually builds it into their sizing or if you just eat it as a cost of doing business. anyway. anyone else find the boring infrastructure stuff is what actually moved the needle for them? my chart reading has barely improved in a year, my process has improved a lot, and only one of those changed my results.