Thanks for the compliments.

Deliberate practice has been tough so far but very worth it. I recently have been going back and reading all my articles and it is amazing how much better I have gotten in a few months. Excited to see the progress over several years.

Dimitar,

I completely agree with your points. When I first started getting serious learning about investing I dealt with massive information overload. I spent all my time reading books, websites, blogs, pretty much anything I could find.

I got so bogged down at one point, that even without realizing it, was spending absolutely no time reading about companies or honing my valuation techniques. I was completely overwhelmed, and it is no wonder looking back why I was struggling to get any better. I still sometimes find it difficult to balance the time spent between learning and practicing and I hope the guidelines I set up help me find a better balance.

Also thanks for sharing that link, it has some fantastic points in it. Making a checklist is something I know I need to do to more efficiently budget my time and it is something I have started working on recently.

I think it’s a good idea to keep track of your time, especially the time spent reading articles, news, blog posts on the internet. Hypertext is tricky business – at one point you are reading a value investing blog, next thing you know you are in that strange part of YouTube. Happened to me many times.

Also, with all the content out there and all the new one being constantly created, you have to have very good filters to avoid the drinking-straight-from-the-firehose problem.

As for researching companies, I like Quan’s post, probably because I followed a similar path. Overall, you have to go through different stages until you find the most fitting way to do it.

Thanks for your sharing your thoughts and those quotes.

That is the main problem I have had so far is being able to throw out research or stop researching a company once I start. I have always been the type of person who if I start anything I always finish it, so that is something I will have to work on to more efficiently maximize my time.

Luckily I have become an extremely patient person over the last several years and have no problem with sitting on my hands and not buying. I have only bought two companies in the last year, while I have lost count of how many I have researched or at least looked into. I am hopeful that my patience will become my competitive advantage over other investors.

I have been struggling with how I best can deliberately practice and hopefully writing out some guidelines will help me, and help me figure out whatever it is that I think I am missing in my analysis or investment process.

Great post! I really like your thoughts. Keep up the good work and have fun with it!

Deliberate practice is definitely necessary, but I think the word “practice” often distorts things for us as value investors. Because our practice is a deliberate search in which we are pushing to learn as much as possible at the same time.

Consider these Buffett and Munger quotes:

Buffett at the 2001 annual shareholder meeting:

When I started, I went through the manuals page by page. I went through 20,000 pages in the Moody’s industrial, transportation, banks and finance manuals — twice. I actually looked at every business — although I didn’t look very hard at some.

See how he says “although I didn’t look very hard at some.” Don’t be afraid to toss an investment out.

Buffett to the Columbia business students in 2006:

It was absolutely a question of turning pages

Or as his partner, Munger, explained it to the graduating class at USC law school:

Another thing you have to do, of course, is to have a lot of assiduity. I like that word because it means: sit down on your ass until you do it.

Anyway, just some thoughts.