Dropped tools of the trade

There are lots of things I know relatively well, but I do suffer from the jack of all trades syndrome, since I consider myself a master of none. I do recognize that I do have some skills that are higher than average though, writing being one of them. This doesn't mean I am the best at writing, just that I am probably able to produce an above average volume of work that is of a relatively high standard. Relative to the average person.

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But, one of my strengths is also simultaneously one of my weaknesses. I am pretty darn good at winging it, using my personal resources to accomplish tasks without having to pre-learn, so as a result, I often fail to prepare and instead just show up under the assumption I will survive. On top of this, I have practices it so much that I am not very scared of failure, which is even more detrimental to my prep work.

This has meant that I have failed to learn a lot of tools that would make my life easier and have instead gone the hard path and performed a lot of the tasks manually. A rarely use templates or filters, basic instead of power tools and I do not leverage most of the features of pretty much anything I own, whether it be my phone, camera or car. This puts more on my plate than I need to actually perform, but does have the benefit of helping me stay in touch with my skills, rather than them degrade through automation and the introduction of competitive cognitive artefacts.

I value real skills as I feel that personal input is a more connected approach to life, but at the same time, it is very, very bad at optimizing resources when there are tools that can do things better or at least adequately to free up personal bandwidth.

It is kind of like washing dishes by hand rather than using a dishwasher, even if the resources saved are less than what could be be generated by putting them into the machine and using that time for something else. I am terrible at resource optimization in my person life, which is probably why I haven't automated much on Hive.

However, one of my "shames" in crypto is just how little I understand about trading, even though I have technically been trading consistently since mid 2017. That isn't a long time, but in all of that time, I have never set as much as a stop loss position. I have traded by buying what I think is low, setting or waiting for a time where I think it is high enough to sell. It is very disorganized and there is a lot of room for improvement.

So, what I think I am going to do this year is start spending more time learning about various trading instruments I might have available to me, as well as various investment opportunities, as my asset "portfolio" is 99% crypto and the collateral in my house. This is quite risky, although may prove quite lucrative.

My wife was sitting next to me tonight and we were talking about the upcoming house bills and the like and I was saying that I am so unsure of when I should or should not sell things, that I just hold, all the way up and all the way down again. Earlier, I had far more trading balls than this and was more risk-seeking, but perhaps life conditions have made me more conservative.

Conservative is good if one has time to build or already holds enough where risk is cushioned, but I feel I have neither, especially the "enough cushion". I am pretty much all crypto in my holdings and while I can't "retire" on it yet, that might be very different a few years down the track, fingers crossed.

But, if I don't expand my own knowledge, the future becomes more uncertain from an experiential standpoint, so I am more likely to become overly conservative, even when there is value to be collected. Getting more familiar with the "tools of the trade" rather than the limited view I have not only opens up latent potential, it also helps me solidify my position on a whole range of topics.

When it comes to being good at what one does, it is highly beneficial to build understanding and capabilities with using the tools at the disposal and while I have been pretty good at developing the understanding, I have less focused on using the tools. My plan is of course to learn through Hive a lot, but I will also start looking into other more traditional sources to glean what I can from the range on offer.

Yes, after four years I should be far better at this that I am, but it since money wasn't my primary focus, I concentrated my effort in other areas instead.

Yet, it is better late than never and I still have some time left in my life to be better at what I do, by improving my skills with the tools I have. Whether I get any better is another matter entirely, but at least I think that I will enjoy the process of learning anyway.

Right now however, is not the time for that as I am literally falling asleep as I finish these sentences and will hit the hay.

But before I go, I will leave a question. What are the trade tools, tricks and tips you have learned that you feel are valuable and give you some kind of edge you wouldn't have otherwise, or make your life easier?

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The End