To keep myself honest I keep track of every single override and my rationale + make regular review later. Is a habit and part of my process now. The obligation to make that "record" alone makes me want to do this less. When I'm thinking about making any change I also always ask myself something like - "when you look at this in a month/year from now, what are the chances you will think it was a calculated decision that you would have done again?". And I consider how I will feel if it result in positive or negative PL. Sign of PL afterwards, logically, is irrelevant, and yet, I am not a machine and find that exercise useful. Having done that cycle many times - my number of overrides is now extremely low, comparing to what I hear from other traders. So it works for me.
Looking back at the change I mentioned - I feel ~80% fine about it. Which means that - when I read my rational back then, I agree with it on most of the days and would very likely have done the same thing again under the same circumstances. It just seemed appropriate as an example of different degrees of overrides.
To take it further - this year, I also have "fixed" a number of things that made me money. Meaning - there was no systematic edge in them and they were deviations from what was supposed to happen. Or had positive expectancy but at a cost of a higher chance of a margin call. It is fun to talk about it to people who trade discretionary or don't trade at all, but for systematic trader there is absolutely no good reason that will stand a test of time not to "fix" them.
Val
