The trades you regret — the impulse buys, the FOMO chases, the revenge clicks — almost all share one feature: you didn't run them past any standard before entering. A short, consistent pre-trade checklist is the cheap, boring habit that catches those bad clicks at the door, turning a reflex into a decision.
The checklist
Five questions, five seconds, every trade: (1) What's my setup? — can I name it, or am I just reacting to movement? (2) Where's my stop? — the level where I'm wrong, defined before I enter. (3) Where's my target? — is reward at least ~2x risk? (4) What's my size? — does the stop-to-risk math set it? (5) Is this my plan, or a feeling? — revenge, FOMO, boredom, or a real edge?
Why it works
The checklist forces the decision to happen before the click, when you're calm, rather than in the fraught moment at the button. It filters out the trades that have no setup, no plan, or no favorable math — which is most of your losers. And it directly disarms the one-more-trade and FOMO impulses by making you name the setup, which they can't survive.
A bad trade can't usually answer “what's my setup and where's my stop?” The checklist just makes you ask before you click, not after you regret.
Keeping it usable
It has to be fast enough to run on a scalp — five questions internalized into a two-second gut-check, not a form you fill out. With practice it becomes automatic, and its real value is on the marginal trade, where it gives you the half-second of friction that lets discipline catch up to impulse. NoVo enforces parts of it structurally (it sizes to your risk and attaches the stop), but the honest “setup or feeling?” question is yours — and it's the one that saves the most money.