Preparation isn't glamorous, but the traders who consistently pass funded evaluations all have some version of the same 5-minute routine. Here's the exact checklist — do it between 09:20 and 09:25 ET every day and you'll walk into the open with a plan instead of a hunch.
Minute 1: mark the Asia range
18:00–02:00 ET the night before. Draw the high and low as horizontal lines that extend through the NY session. These are the first liquidity pools NY will target.
Minute 2: mark the London high and low
02:00–05:00 ET. Same treatment — high and low as extended horizontals. If London already swept one side of Asia, note it in your journal and expect NY to attack the opposite side first.
Minute 3: mark PDH, PDL, and the previous day's midpoint
Previous day high, previous day low, and the halfway point between them. If price is above PDH pre-market, bias is bullish continuation until proven otherwise. Below PDL — bearish. In between — expect a raid of one side.
Minute 4: mark the pre-market NY range
07:00–09:30 ET high and low. This is the range NY will either break out of or fade back into. Both extremes are magnets for the opening drive.
Minute 5: write one sentence
'My bias is [long/short] because price is [above/below] [level], and I'll take my first entry when price [sweeps X / mitigates the FVG at Y] inside the [AM killzone / Silver Bullet window].'
That's it. Five minutes, five levels, one sentence. If you can't write the sentence, you're not ready to trade — go work on setups in replay instead.
The one shortcut that helps
The NQ Replay trainer auto-draws Asia/London/pre-market ranges and PDH/PDL when you load a session, so the five minutes becomes two. But the discipline of writing the sentence is non-negotiable — no tool replaces that.