Porfolio Plan by Dan Sheridan

Look at the Whole Portfolio , do not focus on individual trades get a broad outlook. Divide your portfolio into Long Term, Income Trades, and Speculative (see picture graph).
Its not how much you make its your YIELD! What % did you yield on invested capital.
Long Term positions have Long bullish positions to take advantage of the overall bullish movement of the markets

Income trades take advantage of the grinding ranging behaviour of the markets. This is similar to insurance companies that take in income when nothing is happening.

Earnings plays: look at the last earnings and see what movement occured: http://optionslam.com/ (good website to track historical earnings movement) Also consider the volatilities!
Can play earnings with a double calendar: look at the straddle and the % move needed to break even, or the movement the street is pricing in. Then set your calendar break evens to take advantage of these points. The skew in volatilies should work in your favor as long as the stock doesn't explode up/down. Now, instead of having a straddle where you need the stock to move big to make money, you have a nice realistic range where you make money. Good example is from Goog earnings play (see pictures above) This trade would go into the speculative part of your portfolio.

Calendars & Condor income spreads: these last few months have seen volatilities greater than what we have seen in over 15 years! This is a code red for income traders, extreme vols and difficult for credit spreads, calendars etc.! If you have negative vega positions in your portfolio (meaning if vols go up you get hurt) So, for individual postions, don't put on a neg vega trade when vols are fluctuating huge, but if you have too much positive vega it makes sense to add a neg. vega trade to balance the portfolio.
To place a calendar trade first look at the IV and make sure the vols are tame or average w/out large skews btwn the front and back month option. If there is a large skew the market is pricing a big move in one of the month.