Sunday
Plan it.
Name the week, picture how it goes wrong, and turn each failure into an if-then rule. About ten minutes.
Free Weekly Plan
Decide how the week goes wrong before it starts.
Not a market forecast. A plan for how you'll behave. Every week has its own mines: a CPI print, an FOMC decision, expiry, a holiday that thins the market, or a bad week you're still carrying. You write down where you're most likely to fail while it's quiet, then turn each failure into a rule you can follow when it isn't.
About ten minutes on a Sunday. Free, no sign up. It saves each week, so come back mid-week to log how your rules are holding and on Friday to review.
At a glance
Do it on a quiet Sunday.
Name the week, picture the failure, write it up, turn it into rules, then review on Friday.
How a week works
A short loop, repeated every week. Each week is saved on your device, so you can see what held up over time.
Monday to Friday
Trade by it.
Print your rules, save them as a wallpaper, or keep them in the Rules tab. When a moment comes up, tap whether the rule held or you drifted.
Friday
Review it.
Two honest minutes: what held, where you drifted, and what set it off. Over the weeks your record shows the failure you repeat.
Why it works
Four ideas from behavioural research. Each one does a different job inside the plan.
Prospective hindsight
You find more ways to fail when it has already happened.
Gary Klein's pre-mortem asks a team to assume the project has failed, then explain why. In the research behind it, people who imagined an outcome as already fact came up with around 30% more reasons for it than people asked what might happen. More reasons on paper means fewer surprises on the day.
Hot and cold states
Make the rules while you're calm, not while it's moving.
Loewenstein's work on hot-cold empathy gaps shows that people in a calm state consistently underestimate how differently they will behave once they're emotional. A candle ripping against you is a hot state. A quiet Sunday is a cold one. Decide in the cold, then hand the decision to the hot.
If-then planning
A rule with a trigger beats an intention.
A meta-analysis of 94 studies found that "if X happens, I will do Y" plans had a medium-to-large effect on goal achievement compared with simply intending to do the thing (d = 0.65). The trigger is decided in advance, so in the moment you're executing, not debating.
Action bias
Standing aside has to be a move you're allowed to make.
Elite goalkeepers facing penalties almost always dived to one side, even though staying in the centre stopped more kicks. When something big is happening, doing nothing feels like failing. Writing "flat is a position" into your rules takes that pressure away before it arrives.
Make your plan
Plan the week, keep your rules in view while you trade, then review on Friday. Everything stays on this device and is never sent to us.
0 of 4 steps done
Name the week
What week is it, and what's in it? Tap everything that applies.
Declare failure
It's Friday evening and the week went badly. Not unlucky, your own doing. Tap the ways it happened. Be honest, this is only for you.
Write the entry, in the past tense
Write it as if it has already happened. What did you do, in what order, and what did you tell yourself at each point? Three or four lines is enough.
Turn each failure into a rule
Every failure in your entry becomes an if-then rule. The "if" is the trigger you'll notice in the moment. The "then" is the action you've already decided on.
Put it where you'll see it
Rules only work if they're in front of you when the candle is moving. Pick whatever suits your setup. Your rules also live in the Rules tab, where you can log how they hold up as the week goes on.
Save as an image:
Friday review
Two honest minutes. Nobody sees this but you, and it's what makes next week's rules better.
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Continuum Community
Planning is easier with other people.
Inside, we work through the week together: the market context, the process work, and exercises like this one that keep you following your own rules when it counts. If you'd rather not do it alone, come and have a look.
The research behind it
- Klein, G. (2007). Performing a Project Premortem. Harvard Business Review, September.
- Mitchell, D. J., Russo, J. E., and Pennington, N. (1989). Back to the future: Temporal perspective in the explanation of events. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 2(1), 25-38.
- Loewenstein, G. (2005). Hot-cold empathy gaps and medical decision making. Health Psychology, 24(4S), S49-S56.
- Gollwitzer, P. M., and Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119.
- Bar-Eli, M., Azar, O. H., Ritov, I., Keidar-Levin, Y., and Schein, G. (2007). Action bias among elite soccer goalkeepers: The case of penalty kicks. Journal of Economic Psychology, 28(5), 606-621.
