finally, relax. don't be wedded to any single approach in your quanting.
the whole point to all of the above is to prepare the mind. brain chemistry is a fascinating area. the above techniques increase the flow of blood and certain neurochemicals to the brain, while decreasing certain neurochemicals that could hinder you. stay loose. sometimes you'll be staring at data and wondering what to try next. then you may notice something, like maybe volume seems to go down before a pps rise or whatever. it might even be a lie! but plug it in anyway- you may have unhinged a part of the brain that normally follows rigid rules. it just may have grabbed something useful. i've actually had this happen and got a powerful algo from it, only to find out later that my original premise was wrong! by now, maybe you think this is 'way too complicated for you, but trust me- it isn't. get started and you'll see.
the spreadsheet. you simply cannot do all the calculations you need to do on such massive amounts of data in a timely manner. the spreadsheet does this for you, and even generates the charts to display the results. there are plenty of free tutorials on the web for this. i didn't like any of them and decided to just jump in and teach myself, but maybe you'll find one you like- just google "free spreadsheet tutorial". if you're willing to spend a few bucks on the intensive 2.25-hour video tutorial i wrote, you can get it at whattolearn.com (OrangeQuant Lite link at top of page).
more about diligence. diligence is also about accepting your own results, trusting them. let me tell you a story. in the late 90's i stumbled across the work of one scientist who seemed to have experimentally produced absolute zero in a substance, which is widely believed impossible to do. you see, reaching absolute zero creates some serious math and physics problems, like "infiinite" values of zero mass, super density (black holes), and even time distortions (time stands still). he looked up and all his atoms had disappeared. so what's the first thing he says? something like, "There must have been something wrong with my instruments!" he didn't believe his own results. when i read it i almost fell off my chair laughing. here's this poor guy, this brilliant scientist, who went to all this trouble to create an apparatus for reaching absolute zero- and when it works, all he can say is, "It must be a mistake". Wish i could find the link to him, but if you want to read about this subject, one of the key researchers in this is Dr. Lene Vestergaard Hau and her work is really brilliant.
now, almost 10 years later, i got payback for laughing at that first scientist. i was writing my main quant tutorial and 9-hour video and had come to the section on FOREX (currency trading). now, whenever you're talking FOREX with someone, there's always this elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about- those "apparently random" and rowdy spikes that make some FOREXers rich and others cry. so i wouldn't talk about it. i just kept writing with the elephant looking over my shoulder. finally, it was just too much- i knew i could do this. so i started writing about how to quant those spikes but hadn't the slightest idea where i was going with it. but i kept on as if i knew. and suddenly, i really did know what i was doing. then i tested it to see what had happened in the hours since i'd captured the first data. and it had worked. so what do you think is the first thing i said? right- "This is impossible- must've been something wrong with my calculations!"
So i repeated it with some fresh data and waited. sure enough, i nailed the next spike within +/- 60 seconds of its occurence. i was stamping around on the floor laughing- hysterical. but i'll never forget the lesson- don't laugh at your betters, and always trust your results until you can prove yourself wrong. here's what that big moneymaking/moneyeating spike looked like (click image for larger view):
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