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I don’t “feel ready” for London. I run a short checklist so the first hour doesn’t rewrite the plan.

Pre-London card (under 3 minutes)
1. News: hard blackout windows marked (today/this week). If high-impact hits early London, size/flat rules already set.
2. Levels: overnight range, prior day H/L, 1–2 levels that already mattered on M15/H1 — not 15 lines of art.
3. Max risk: hard daily stop + soft process stop + max tickets for the open segment.
4. Pairs allowed: today’s shortlist only.
5. Spread gate: if spread > X at the open, I observe — I don’t force participation.

The point isn’t to predict London. It’s to stop negotiating after the first wick.

What’s on your pre-London card — and what did you remove because you never actually used it?

Pre-London card from a Frankfurt start

I begin earlier than pure London-only desks, but I still run a short card before the handoff into the open drive. “Feel ready” has never been a reliable state for me.

Mine:

• News: blackouts marked; if a high-impact print sits early, size or flat already decided.
• Levels: overnight range, prior day high and low, one or two that mattered — not a gallery of lines.
• Max risk: soft stop and hard stop in cash terms, visible before the first order.
• Spread: first trade allowed only after the filter passes, not because the candle looks urgent.

The card is how a full-time morning stays boring on purpose. When the first hour goes wrong, it is usually because one of those four was skipped, not because the market invented a new personality.

I fill the card before coffee gets interesting and before I open social feeds. Order of operations matters. Once the tape is moving, people skip the dull lines — and those dull lines are the ones that pay the bills.

What is the one item most often missing when your first hour goes wrong — news, levels, or risk ceiling?