An effective trading routine can do miracles for your trading performance.

Trading is not only about analyzing the market and placing buy and sell orders, but it needs a comprehensive approach to get the most out of your time.

That’s why you need to build a trading routine, which will make your trader’s life much easier.

Let’s take a look at the top four ways to build your own effective trading routine.

Prepare for the Trading Day Ahead

Your trading doesn’t end with the close of your last position, or with the end of the current trading day. Instead, that’s the best time to analyze the market for new trading opportunities, as it offers a precious period of low distractions.

Start with checking the next trading day’s economic releases, and see whether there are any major events that could impact your open positions.

For example, if you have any exposure to the US dollar, you might want to close your position ahead of the NFP report – which is released each first Friday of the month.

Don’t Spend the Entire Day Trading

Spending hours in front of your forex trading platform leads to trading mistakes and emotional trading. If you feel tired when trading, you could start to chase the market for trade setups and accumulate losses faster than you think. That’s why you need to take occasional breaks.

Aim to trade only during the trading sessions that suit you best. For example, you may trade only the morning London session or the New York – London overlap, which in addition to the highest market volatility also provides the lowest trading costs. After your trading session is over, take a nap or hit the gym to release stress.

Study Market Reports and Follow Other Traders

After you’re finished with the current trading day, a simple and effective way to improve your performance is to study various market reports and get an insight into how other traders anticipate the market environment.

Most of the large banks, which are big players in the Forex market, regularly publish their views on the market with detailed commentary and their own exchange rate forecasts for the coming period.

Combined with social trading platforms which are full of traders who regularly publish their trade setups, this can have a great impact on your own trading perspective.

Build the Habit of Keeping a Trading Journal

Last but not least, you should form the habit of keeping a trading journal. This can have many benefits for your trading, as it provides the complete documentation to analyze and fine-tune your trading strategy.

Simply write down each forex trade you make, with the corresponding entry and exit points, trade triggers, chart setups and the resulting profit or loss.

Perform regular journal retrospectives to spot common patterns that lead to bad trading decisions, and try to avoid the same mistakes in the future.

This will not only help you to improve your trading, but will also store all your previous trades and their results in one place.