LOCK IN: The Summer That Rebuilds Your TradingGoldOANDA:XAUUSDDavid_PerkEverything comes down to focus. When you feel stuck, it's usually because you've been consuming trading instead of doing it, you scrolling other people's setups, half-watching another YouTube breakdown, refreshing the feed. It feels like progress. It isn't. It's the comfortable version of work. Here Is what Im doing few times a year and that time is now. You can do with this information whatever you want, but if you see yourself in what I described on the beginning this is the way out. 🧪I'm going to Lock In for the Summer shut the doors for a fixed window and pour everything into one mission until it's built. Trading is a lifetime project, and you don't master it by sampling. You master it by going deep on one thing at a time, long enough that it becomes who you are. Starting July 1, that one thing for me is backtesting lower timeframes, the London session, on EURUSD, GBPUSD, and the Dollar Index. ⁉️ What "Lock In" Means For Me No robe, no incense, no cave. Lock In is just fewer people, more focus. I'm not running from the world, I'm closing the door for a season so I can build in peace. It's deliberately a little extreme and it's temporary. I run it for a defined period, then I come back sharper with new skill. 📌 What it looks like: • A temporary stretch of radical simplicity • Stripping out everything that doesn't serve the goal • Working on ONE mission, not three, ONE • Training my mind through fewer choices and fewer distractions 📌 How long you stay locked in decides how much you change: • 30 days → a reset • 60–90 days → a real transformation • 6 months → a new identity Mine plan is a 60-day Lock In. That's the transformation band long enough to add LTF execution next to my Swing trading. 🎯 Tied to a concrete goal Mine is fixed and measurable. I'm European and a morning person, so my sharpest focus lands in the London session. My swing trades usually run a few days or longer, but this summer I want to add something short-term, London-only. By the time New York opens, I don't want to be at the PC anymore. My Mission 👉 Backtest one model on 250 trades on EURUSD, GBPUSD, and DXY, on lower timeframes, used only in the London session. I want focus only on 2 setups and relationship between EUR,DXY and GBP and SMT on it. 1) 🧪 London Continuation setup • Narrative: Asia did the manipulation → London does the continuation. • Asia session already made a manipulation into a key level • Price displaced away from that level • CIOD / OB on M15 or H1 before London open 2) 🧪 London Reversal Bullish setup • Narrative: London performs the manipulation → price reverses. • Asia session consolidates near a higher timeframe key level • London open initiates the manipulation into the key level • Price reject at the key level and created M15 order block I should focus on at one at the time but goal is to gain more depth experience on LTF and sessions. Where usually one setup appears on EUR and another on DXY or GBP and there creates SMT. Its something Im seeing over and over, but never looked in to it more in to the depth. Now I want obtain statistical data. 📌 I come out of Lock In when: • The mission is complete (250 trades logged and analyzed) • The routine clicks without effort • The discipline feels normal, not forced • The system is actually built Then I can relax, take a breath and I keep the strongest 50 - 70% of the habits. That's how the upgrade becomes permanent. I know I won't be perfect. But from past experiences I know, I'll improve enough that I'm already planning same session for end of the year/ January. No full-hermit forever, though social life matters, so I taking a real breaks between Lock Ins are important. 🧪 Lock In Runs in Two Phases 1️⃣ Cut the distractions and the cheap dopamine 2️⃣ Add the traction — controlled obsession on the one project 1️⃣ Phase One — Cut the Distractions ❌ 1. Tame the phone. Social media off, Do Not Disturb on. I delete the apps or block them during the work window. The harder that feels, the more I needed to do it. Short-form content is a distraction loop, so during Lock In I cut it completely; in normal life I keep one 30-minute intentional window. ❌ 2. Shrink the social calendar. For this window I say no to most of it. No late nights, no "just one drink," not even a coffee unless it clearly serves the mission. Family duties stay those are non-negotiable. But a "weekend of drinking and 2 a.m. nights" is a hard no. ❌ 3. Cut the junk dopamine. Thirst-trap scrolling, mindless stimulation, X scrolling all out. It fries focus and tanks discipline. A few days clean and the energy shifts: I wake up driven, I actually want to sit at the charts. I feel like a hunter again instead of a zombie. ❌ 4. Kill the streaming and the news. Netflix is a time sink. So is the news. It doesn't matter what the headlines scream or how a match ended none of it moves the mission forward. I reclaim those hours. 2️⃣ Phase Two — Add the Traction ✅ 1. One project — my core mission 🎯 It's already chosen and it's non-negotiable: backtest one model to 250 trades on EUR, GBP, and DXY, lower timeframes, in London. That's the whole quest. The power here is that it removes decision fatigue. 🧪 Rules: • ONE mission • Work it daily • Don't switch models mid-stream • A clear finish line (250 trades + a written playbook) ✅ 2. One book 📖 Nobody taught me the inner game — mindset, psychology, discipline, focus, execution. 30 minutes a day is plenty. I love re-reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, but this round I'm going with The Winner Effect by Ian Robertson. ✅ 3. One meditation — to reset attention 🧘♂️ Lock In without meditation is a gym with no weights. I keep it stupid-simple: 20 minutes a day (10 if I'm rusty). Sit, close my eyes, follow my breath, let thoughts pass without chasing them. I queue one guided session in advance so I'm not "finding" a meditation and falling back into the scroll. This is reps for attention the same muscle I need to sit through a backtest without checking my phone. ✅ 4. One workout 💪 Resistance training, not hard cardio. It's the time of year to run stupid-simple and repetitive training with no mental energy. Show up, stretch, lift, leave in 45 minutes. My base: • Squat 6×6 — 60% / 65% / 70% / 75% • Bench 6×6 — 60% / 65% / 70% / 75% • Deadlift 6×6 — 60% / 65% / 70% / 75% 👉 Find the working max, train hard 3 days (Mon / Wed / Fri), use the other days for mobility and stretching, take one full rest day. Warm up 10 minutes, stretch properly after. ✅ 5. Long walks — no phone, no music 🚶♂️🌲 60 minutes, ideally in nature, fully present. This is where the rules click and the patterns connect. A lot of my best model refinements get born on these walks, not at the desk. Morning + fasted is a bonus. ✅ 6. Eat like an athlete, not a bin 🥦 I work the main focus hours light or fasted and eat my first real meal after the deep work is done — this summer I'm running 14-hour fasts. Full and bloated = slow brain, and deep work is exactly when I can't afford that. Keep it simple: protein, good carbs, healthy fats, minimal junk. Normal life has its exceptions; Lock In doesn't. 📅 The shape of my Lock In day: • Early wake → meditation → backtesting block → book → workout. These first hours win the day before it starts. • Job / family → kids and family get my real presence. Non-negotiable. • Second block (if I have it) → more intentional work, but capped. 90 focused minutes beats burning out in one heroic session. Consistency wins, so I don't overshoot in week one. • Journal 📝 → what I learned, how each pillar went (meditation, backtesting, book, workout). • Plan tomorrow ✍️, then walk (no phone), shower, sleep. • Weekends 🔁 → one bigger project block to summarize the week's lessons, then actually rest — sauna, family, reading. Two months of this and the change is real. Volatility drops over the summer anyway — so I'll be ready when September comes. 📊 THE SUMMER LOCK IN PLAN — 60 DAYS, STARTING JULY 1 🎯 Mission: Backtest one model to 250 trades on EURUSD, GBPUSD, and DXY, on lower timeframes, in the London session. Come out with a written, stats-backed playbook. 🧠 Why these three together DXY is dollar strength itself, and it's heavily weighted toward the euro and the pound. EURUSD and GBPUSD tend to move opposite to DXY so DXY isn't a fourth instrument competing for attention, it's my directional confirmation. When DXY breaks down through a session level while EUR/GBP break up at the same time, that's alignment. I'll specifically be watching SMT across the session. Backtesting all three lets me measure whether that confluence actually improves my edge or just feels good. My HTF framework will still be my CLS ranges, but I want be able to scale down in the model 1 and 2 move in to LTF and do few more shorter entries. 🕐 Session window (Prague / CEST, summer) • London session: ~09:00–11:00. The open at 09:00 and the first 2–3 hours carry most of the move — that's my whole hunting window. 📝 The trade log (built before anything else) I'll be using backtesting software to pull the data I need. One row per trade: Date · Pair · Session · HTF bias · DXY confirmation (Y/N) · Entry TF · Setup name · Entry · Stop · Target · Risk (R) · Result (R) · Screenshot link · One-line note Everything downstream comes out of this — win rate, expectancy, session confluence. I'm expecting to come out with more clarity and confidence, and to answer the real question: does DXY confluence actually help, do I need both EUR and GBP, or should I specialize in EUR alone? That decision gets made on the data, not on a feeling. 📊 MONTH 1 — JULY: Build the engine July's goal is a clean, defined model and the first ~100 logged trades. No refining yet — just collecting honest data. Week 1 (Jul 1–6) — Define ONE model and set up. Write the model down in plain language before I touch the replay tool: the HTF bias rule, the DXY confirmation rule, the entry trigger on M3/M5, the stop, the target, the session filter. If I can't fit it on one page, it's not a model yet. Build the trade log. Run 10–20 practice trades just to break in the workflow (these don't count toward the 250). Week 2 (Jul 7–13) — Backtest the London session. One pair per block so I don't cross-contaminate reads. Bar-replay, mark the session open, take only setups that fit the written rules. Target ~10 trades/day → ~60 for the week. Screenshot every entry. Journal nightly: which setups felt forced, which were clean. Week 3 (Jul 14–20) — Holidays with my daughter. Here I will be slightly distracted. But hopefully in first two weeks I will create a system for backtesting that I can continue work for 90 minutes a day. As I usually wake up 2-3 hours before her. I want to keep it going with at least 6 tested trades/day. By the end of this week I should be around 100 backtested trades. Week 4 (Jul 21–27) — DXY-confluence pass + first stats. Batch one Done !! Trades that requires DXY confirmation and one that ignores it, tagged separately. By Sunday I'must have finished review of all 100 trades and pull the first numbers — win rate, average R, expectancy — broken out by pair. I much catch up I ll be behind . As you can see last year I had around 200 trades in my journal. This 250 Trades will gain me 1 year experience in the short time. (Jul 28–31 — Break for letting it settle down in my mind. It always good take a small break and step away and let in your mind information settle down a bit. 📊 MONTH 2 — Refine from the data, not from feelings. 🧠 Look at what July actually says. Does DXY confirmation lift the win rate enough to justify the filter? Do I need both GBP and EUR? Cut the lowest-performing setup. Rewrite the one-page model with the changes and date it, so I can compare old vs new. At this point I should have view of how the setup should look like. Week 6 - Week 8 (Aug 9– 31) — Test the refined model. For the rest of the month I will run refined version on the London session, same log, new tab still replay, still stacking toward 250 if possible might even more. This should move faster and with more confidence. I'm on holidays for some time again, so there can be some slowdown temporarily. Hence I put my goal to 250 trades as minimum. ✅ How I'll know it worked • 250 trades logged and analyzed counted, not estimated • A one-page model I can recite from memory • Hard numbers: win rate, average RR, expectancy • A clear answer on whether I specialize in EUR alone • The morning routine running on autopilot Then I can start trade this method in the September and keep the habits that built all of it. ❗ Are you in? Lock starts today July 1. 🚀Boost | 🔁 Share | 💬 Comment | ✅Follow for more CLS setups Adapt useful, Reject useless and add what is specifically yours. David Perk