It is quarter past one on a Tuesday and there are ten minutes of lunch left. The office group chat has lit up: somebody's cousin has a stock that is "sure to go up before Bihu". The app on your phone shows a number in red. There is a presentation at two.

None of this is unusual. What matters is what you do in the next ten minutes, and in the thousands of ten-minute windows like it over the next twenty years. A plan rarely fails on its arithmetic. It fails on habits. Here are five that keep one alive. (And before acting on any tip, check whether the person giving it is registered.)

1. Choose a plan that runs without you watching

Trading done properly is a job. It takes hours of attention every market day: reading, tracking, deciding, and living with the decisions. The people who do it seriously treat it as their work.

You already have a job, and it deserves your attention during the day. So the plan you pick has to keep working while you do yours. A monthly SIP set up on salary day does that; so does a simple split you review once or twice a year. If a plan only works when you watch it, it will not survive your working life.

2. Do less

Most of the damage in investing comes from doing too much, not too little. Every switch, every exit on a bad day, every re-entry after a good week is a decision, and every decision is another chance to get one wrong.

Activity feels like control. It usually is not. A plan with fewer moving parts gives you fewer chances to act on a mood.

3. Count what every move costs

Every move has a price, even when it looks free. With shares, brokerage and charges apply to every trade, win or lose, and short-term gains are taxed more heavily than long-term ones. With mutual funds, selling early can carry an exit load, any gain can be taxed, and a switch between schemes counts as selling one and buying another.

None of these is large on its own. Paid over and over, they add up quietly, like a small leak in a bucket you keep refilling.

4. Keepable beats clever

A plan only works if you are still following it years later. The cleverest plan, the one with six funds and a rebalancing rule you read about online, is worth nothing if you drop it in year two.

Pick one simple enough to keep through the dull years and the bad ones. Simple is not lazy. It is the version you will still be running when it matters.

5. In a bad month, review; don't quit

Falls are part of investing in markets. Values go down as well as up, sometimes for months, and nobody can tell you in advance when a fall will end.

A bad month is a good time to take the plan out and check it against your goal. Has the goal changed? Has your income changed? Has the time you have changed? If none of those has, the plan usually has not either. A bad month is rarely a reason to drop a plan, and selling during a fall turns a fall on paper into a loss you have actually taken. If you do want to stop, talk it through with someone first.

The part in your hands

Markets do not take instructions from anyone. What you do control is the plan and how you behave around it: how much, how often, for how long, and what you do when the number turns red.

That is why we work on plans, not tips. If you would like help building one you can actually keep, talk to us.