Down to One Single Rule, and I made it through Day 1

 I've decided that my list of rules is too long (see somewhere below). I've decided that I have only 1 rule. Whatever trade I put on, I can risk no more than 2% of the liquidation value of that account. So if I have an 8k account, I can risk $80 x 2 = $160 per trade. If I have a 2k account, I can risk only $40 per trade. Not sure how I will trade a 2k account, perhaps scalping only. In any case, this is my 1 rule.

I can still risk this money in different ways. For example I could go long stock, and set the stop so that I lose max $160 on whatever position I take. For example buying 100 shares of a  $30 stock with a $28.5 stop would lose $150 max and even provide a few bucks for commissions. Or I could buy an option worth $320 and set a stop on it to sell automatically if it touches $160. Or I could spend the whole money on one option for $160, or hopefully very rarely, buy 4 "lottery ticket" OTM options for $40 each.

If I need to lower/loosen the stop, well then I need to reduce the position size accordingly. No matter what I do, the risk can absolutely not exceed that amount of max loss. 2% is ok. It is sad when it occassionally hits that stop -but I can sleep at night. The past 48 hours have been horrible. I am still holding some options in the "hope" they recover, right as we go into "sell in may" and as Goldman Sachs gets investigated criminally tonight... I hate hope. Hope is not a strategy. Prayer is not a strategy. You can't control what the market is going to do, so all you can do is control how much risk you are going to expose to it.

Also here is a good article from a guy on stock twits on trading rules:

Joe Fahmy's trading rules