What Stays Within Reach of the Keyboard

Most desks grow by accumulation, and by the second year there are three notebooks, two phones and a coffee cup within elbow distance of the order entry keys. Physical layout is part of the routine in the same way the chart layout is, and it fails the same way, quietly and only under pressure. The desk breakdown sitting on orb trading routine richiebranson lists four things that stay in reach and everything else out of it, since the items near the keyboard are the ones that get picked up during the first fifteen minutes whether they help or not.

The Four That Stay

A pen and the day sheet, the phone with the broker desk number on it, water, and nothing else. The day sheet carries the plan written the night before and the space for the entry, the exit and the note. It lies flat beside the keyboard, where it can be written on without moving the mouse hand.

The phone stays face down and silent. It is there for one purpose, calling the desk, and it is face down because a phone showing notifications is a chart competitor.

What Gets Moved Out of Reach on Purpose

Anything that produces an opinion. A second screen showing financial television, a chat window, a phone with a social feed. These are not moved because of willpower, they are moved because reaching for something is a decision and glancing at something is not. Distance converts a glance back into a decision.

The Keyboard Itself

Hotkeys that send orders should not sit next to hotkeys that do something harmless. Buy, sell and flatten need physical separation from anything used casually, and the flatten key in particular belongs somewhere it cannot be hit while reaching for something else. A mis sent order at the opening bell is a real position and it will be discovered late.

Whatever the arrangement, it stays fixed. A keyboard remapped on a Tuesday afternoon is a keyboard the hands do not know on Wednesday morning.

Screen Position and What the Eye Rests On

The chart carrying the opening range goes directly ahead at eye height. The order ticket sits underneath or beside it, close enough that reading the quantity does not require turning the head. Anything checked only occasionally, the account balance for instance, goes on a secondary screen, because a balance in the primary field of view is read constantly and changes behaviour on every tick.

Why This Is a Routine Item and Not a One Time Setup

Desks revert. The cup comes back, a notebook from a different project lands on the day sheet, a cable gets moved. Thirty seconds at the end of each session putting the surface back to a known state is the cheapest item on the whole list, and it means the next morning starts from a layout rather than from yesterday's residue.