Why Vain CuriosityWastes Your Time—and How to Break Free

“You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.” — Marcus Aurelius

Earlier, it was Facebook. Before that, Orkut. Then email. Even the daily horoscope.

And now?
It’s Groww. The stock market.

I feel a regular itch to check my portfolio—whether my shares have gone up or down. I know this urge is a waste of time. Monitoring the market’s tiny daily movements doesn’t help.

Experts say the same, and their reasoning is solid, grounded, unarguable.

And yet?

I still give in to the impulse. I keep checking, even though I know it steals my time and attention—leaving less room for real, productive work.

But if productivity is my aim, I must be ruthless about weeding out habits that hold me back. If I clearly know that a certain activity doesn’t contribute to my growth, there’s no excuse for continuing it.

I need to kill my base impulses, however intense they feel in the moment. Doing that would free up energy. It would give me forward momentum—more than I currently have.

So, while I’m in this freewriting session, let me make a clear resolve:

I will stop checking my portfolio so frequently.

Especially now, when I don’t need to buy or sell anything—it’s pointless. A waste of attention.

Why I Must Stop Checking My Portfolio So Often

  • If I had bought land, would I keep calling the estate agent to ask about its price?
    Of course not. Just like land, my investments are meant to grow over time—not be obsessively monitored.
  • Would I sell my shares if the prices moved up or down today?
    No. If I’m not planning to sell, why bother tracking the minute changes?
  • A 1% rise or fall means almost nothing.
    Just like a 1% change in temperature doesn't affect your day much, small market movements are noise, not signals.
  • The market always moves in waves.
    Ups and downs are part of the cycle. Panicking or celebrating every movement is pointless. If I act on impulse—especially by selling—I’m more likely to lose in the long run.
  • Long-term investors always win.
    Jeremy Siegel’s Stocks for the Long Run and Dalbar’s Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior show that those who stay invested for decades—through highs and lows—end up far wealthier than those who try to trade on short-term swings. Time in the market consistently beats timing the market.
  • None of the great investing books recommend this habit.
    Books like The Intelligent Investor, The Psychology of Money, and Coffee Can Investing emphasise studying companies deeply, not tracking their share prices daily. Monitoring market movements isn’t the real work—research is.

Conclusion: Decide, Don’t Drift

These are some of the key reasons why constant portfolio checking is a waste of time. The itch is driven by vain curiosity—no different from checking email or social media for the tenth time in an hour.

Do those updates ever change your life in any significant way?

Exactly.

So, what’s my plan?

Simple: decide, then act intentionally—not on impulse or curiosity.

And maybe, as you read this, you can ask yourself the same question:
Are there habits in your own life driven by empty curiosity?
Activities you keep repeating—not because they help you grow, but simply because they scratch some fleeting itch?

If so, perhaps it’s time to pause, reflect, and begin letting them go.
Because attention is a limited resource—and the more we guard it, the more we grow.

“Rule your mind, or it will rule you.” — Horace

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