The Temptation to Try Everything
If you’ve spent any time learning options trading, you’ve probably felt it: that overwhelming urge to try everything. The temptation to change strategies like you change clothing. You think, well straddles didn’t work, let me try broken wing butterflies, then surely I’ll make money. You may watch a few videos from Tastytrade, read books on options trading, then suddenly your head is full of strategies: strangles, straddles, iron condors, butterflies, jade lizards, ratio spreads, naked puts, debit spreads…you get the gist. You are looking for any strategy that will be profitable in this challenging world of options trading. The truth is that no strategy works all the time, and even if a strategy works well in the short term, it may not work well in changing market conditions. So how do I match the right strategy at the right time to the right market? Well, it’s nearly impossible and extremely unlikely to predict because the market is unpredictable.
So what do we do then, give up? Spend more on options coaching or courses? Or just give in to the argument that using a bunch of strategies will help you diversify and make you more money? The logic sounds reasonable: diversify strategies, cover all market conditions, and you’ll always have something working. In theory, that makes sense. In practice, it often leads to confusion, inconsistency, and underperformance. At Put Paradise, we take the opposite approach. Instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, we follow a single, disciplined system—the Put Path Options Trading System. In this post, we’re going to explain why that approach is not only simpler, but actually more profitable over time.
Strategy Overload Creates Confusion, Not Diversification
Let’s start with the core idea behind “spaghetti trading”, the belief that using many strategies creates diversification. Yes, diversified strategies behave differently:
- Strangles and straddles benefit from volatility
- Credit spreads benefit from time decay
- Debit spreads rely on directional movement
- Calendars depend on volatility shifts
But here’s the problem: you’re not just diversifying outcomes—you’re multiplying complexity, and you are trying to make assumptions on market or stock direction, volatility changes, within a specific time window. In reality, no one can do this. You can’t accurately predict direction, magnitude, and time frame consistently over the long term. So what do people do? They use prediction software or AI or just rely on hunches or feelings to make assumptions. That is a recipe for failure. To navigate the plethora of strategies you need deep understanding of the ground rules:
- Different entry criteria
- Different risk management rules
- Different adjustment techniques
- Different exit strategies
So instead of mastering one system, you’re juggling ten, likely without much success. That leads to inconsistent decision-making, conflicting signals, and emotional second-guessing. You might have one trade telling you volatility is your friend, while another is losing because volatility is rising. That’s not diversification. That’s internal conflict in your portfolio. Not to mention that you are having to spend more and more of your precious time managing this ever growing portfolio of strategies, having to manage trades, and worrying more than ever about the markets.
The Put Path avoids this entirely. Every trade follows the same structure (Put Credit Spreads), uses the same time frame (28-32 DTE), applies the same risk rules (200% max loss). This creates clarity and repeatability, which are far more valuable than complexity. So you are able to be more profitable, have less stress, and spend less time trading versus having a chaotic and less profitable portfolio.
More Strategies = More Stress and More Mistakes
Let’s talk about the real-world impact. If you’re running multiple strategies, your weekly routine looks something like this:
- Monitoring Greeks across different positions
- Managing adjustments (rolling, widening, hedging)
- Watching volatility changes constantly
- Deciding which trades to prioritize
It becomes a part-time or even a full-time job. Even worse, it becomes emotional. Because now you’re constantly reacting, you’re glued to the screen, and you’re trying to “fix” trades. This is exactly what most retail traders struggle with. Compare that to the Put Path system:
- ~15 minutes per week
- Defined entries and exits
- No adjustments
- Very little intraday monitoring
You place your trades. You follow the rules. You move on. There’s a massive difference between managing trades intelligently and babysitting trades. The more strategies you use, the more you’re forced into the second category. The truth is that the more you babysit, the more you manage and adjust the trades. For most people, the more you manage and adjust, the more mistakes you make (and the more commissions you give to your broker). The hard reality is that most mistakes happen during over-management due to emotional decision making.
Capital Efficiency and Profitability Favor Simplicity
Now let’s talk results. One of the biggest misconceptions is that more strategies = better performance. When you spread your capital across multiple strategy types you do increase strategy diversification, but you also dilute your performance, you increase transaction costs, and you reduce consistency. Many strategies, especially undefined risk ones like naked puts or naked calls or strangles, also require significant buying power, lead to larger drawdowns, and more emotional highs and lows. Meanwhile, the Put Path is built around defined risk, high probability trades, and efficient use of capital. Each trade risks less than 2% of total capital, uses minimal buying power, and generates consistent premium. Also, since we use a largely diversified underlying set, it performs well in nearly all market conditions since 2020. So, instead of chasing different market conditions, we stay neutral to bullish, let probabilities and time decay work, and rely on consistency, not prediction. Over time, this leads to smoother P&L, less dramatic drawdowns, and more predictable performance.
So here’s the key insight:
You don’t need to win within every market condition—you need to win consistently over time.
Trying to optimize for every scenario often results in mastering none. Sure, sharp drawdowns will lead to losses using the Put Path, but if you can accept those temporary losses you’ll realize that your profits are actually much higher over time. In theory, there may be some magical system of strategies out there where you never lose in a given week or month, and that will get you consistently a 20%-30% return rate with no big drawdowns throughout the year. But is that system better than the Put Path with consistent potential performance at 50% ARR with some drawdowns and some losing weeks and months baked in? The answer is obvious. You take the higher profit and loss consistently and accept the occasional big losses.
Master One System, Don’t Chase Ten
So, should you throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks? No. Because what usually “sticks” isn’t a strategy: it’s confusion, inconsistency, and frustration. Yes, world class traders and think tanks like Tastytrade promote strategy diversification, and there is value in understanding different approaches for your own edification. Education matters…but for part-time, or beginner options traders, execution matters more. Profitability matters more. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t learn the basics of all of these other strategies. You should, but just don’t waste your money and time on them. The reality is that I had to learn all of these lessons the hard way. I spent years trading all of these strategies and ultimately ended up less profitable, burned out, and about ready to quit options trading altogether. Until I took a step back and analyzed my trades over several years, and saw that simplification works best for my lifestyle. Put Credit Spreads worked best for my account size and P&L. So I started to develop an easier way to trade, a less stressful way to trade, and ultimately a more profitable way to trade. At Put Paradise, we believe simplicity beats complexity, consistency beats variety, and discipline beats experimentation.
The Put Path Options Trading System is designed to:
- Reduce stress
- Minimize time commitment
- Maximize capital efficiency
- Deliver consistent results
Not because it does everything—but because it does one thing extremely well. Remember this:
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times” – Bruce Lee
So if you’re tired of jumping between strategies, watching screens all day, overanalyzing trades, and spending hours managing positions, then it’s time to simplify. Download the Put Path Options Trading System guide. Follow the checklist. Commit to one approach. Most importantly: stop throwing spaghetti at the wall—start trading with purpose, discipline, and consistency. Remember, options trading is better when it’s not done in isolation: leave a comment below with your thoughts or questions, and let’s keep the conversation going!
Leave a Reply