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Most pre-session routines check the market. Fewer check the trader. A simple readiness score covers both in about five minutes.

Score each item 0, 1 or 2:

• Sleep: under 6 hours = 0, 6–7 = 1, more = 2.
• Focus: distracted or stressed = 0, normal = 1, clear = 2.
• Calendar: high-impact event in your window and no plan = 0, event with a plan = 1, quiet = 2.
• Levels: not marked = 0, partly = 1, done = 2.
• Yesterday: rule break you have not reviewed = 0, reviewed = 1, clean day = 2.

Then link the total to size: 8–10 normal size, 5–7 half size, below 5 no live trading, only observation or replay.

The point is not precision. Writing the score down makes it harder to ignore a bad night's sleep or an unreviewed mistake. After a month, the journal usually shows a clear link between low scores and poor days.

Would a score like this change how you start the session, or do you already use something similar?

The total hides one case I care about. Score sleep at 0 and everything else at 2 and you reach 8, which is full size on this scale after four and a half hours in bed.

So I run it with two gates on top of the sum. A 0 on sleep or on yesterday caps me at half size whatever the total says, and two zeros anywhere mean replay only.

I would also split the items into two groups. Levels and calendar are homework that should be 2 every day once the routine is set, so in practice they pad the score rather than measure anything about me.

What helped more was scoring again straight after the session, on the same 0 to 2 scale, before looking at the result. Comparing the two numbers showed my focus rating was optimistic on roughly a third of mornings.

The link with bad days was clearest on rule breaks rather than losses. Many red days in my journal were fine trading that simply lost, while the low score days produced the trades I would not take again.

Has anyone tried weighting sleep double? Being two hours short seems to cost me more than any other item on the list.