Two of the more important things I've learned in working with investors during the past 40 years are that they first have to have an investment strategy that's tied to their personal goals and risk tolerance. The other is that they have to learn to be able to close their minds to the noise created by the daily headlines in order to keep focused on what's best for them longer term. If they don't do the second one, the first one has no value.

The intention of this piece is to help provide you with some framework around which to help create and stay with (emphasis on the latter) a template, a strategy for your current stage of your investment life.

As for the noise part, being constantly exhorted by various websites, blogs, and the financial television pundits du jour that you "have to" take this action now or that "huge risk" awaits if you don't do something else, can put you off your feed. Having a strategy also means you can turn those guys way down.

Having said that, given the nature of this medium, I obviously can't make a specific recommendation for each reader. Your investments should be allocated in a way that's compatible with your specific goals and risk tolerance.

I will, however, create three hypothetical portfolios for the investment of $10,000 for people in certain age bands. I will do so based on the general needs and goals I see in dealing with people like them on a regular basis.

Since no one knows which type of investments will do well from one year to the next, we recommend allocating your assets across different sectors. This way, while you may not shoot out those lights folks talk about, the odds are vastly improved for getting to where you eventually want to be. Putting all or most of your assets into one or two sectors or specific investments simply moves your risk way too high. You then move from investor to fortune teller.

At the outset, let me say that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to creating a strategy. The website formulas and conventional wisdom of what's best for a certain age investor or what constitutes risk seem to be designed for some average person who may exist statistically but one whom I've never met in person.

Further, you can consider these investment examples as being suitable for either a retirement-type account or a regular account. In the case where your assets are mostly in a 401(k) or 403(b) account, you'll probably find similar choices in the offerings you have available to you.

Investors age 25-50

During their main asset accumulation years, investors typically want to be able to build up the money they will have available for future use. Investors in all these phases should plan to place any new deposits pro-rata into each section; not just the current best performer. In that regard, I would suggest an allocation of $2,500 into each of the following sectors; large-cap growth, small-cap growth, developing markets, and global bond. Again, this is a hypothetical allocation not intended as an investment recommendation—since I don't know what your specific goals and risk tolerance are. There can be significant variations in the fees charged and service provided by different managers, so be sure to do your homework using Morningstar or other independent analysis tools.

Large caps are the big blue-chip firms. Small caps usually have higher share price fluctuation, higher risk, and potentially higher returns. Developing markets also fall into a higher risk category, but they're important in my view as they represent rapidly expanding markets for all goods and services due to an emergent middle class. Global bonds are designed to provide a cash-flow component and most non-U.S. bonds currently have higher returns (and are higher risk) than U.S. bonds.

Investors age 50-retirement

In this phase, depending on your investment goals and risk tolerance, you may want a portion of your assets in long-term, growth-oriented investments. When I work with investors in their pre-retirement years, I tend to focus more on dividend income, as opposed to bond interest. Dividend-paying stocks are designed to provide current cash flow, while still offering the potential growth needed for purchasing power. Keep in mind that dividends aren't guaranteed and can occasionally be reduced or eliminated.

The allocation I typically suggest to investors in pre-retirement is $2,500 each into the following: large-cap value sector—these tend to have more dividend stocks than a long-term growth sector but are all still blue-chips; a dividend and income, or balanced, investment—different names for what are usually the same type of investment; international value; and global bond.

Post-retirement

Even at this stage, I'm convinced that you must continue to structure your allocation so that it includes a degree of stock exposure in order to, again, help your asset purchasing power have the potential to stay ahead of inflation.

In this instance, I suggest you consider placing about 33 percent of your funds into global bonds; 33 percent into high-quality, short-duration U.S. corporate bonds; and a growth-and-income component.

Duration is a term expressed in years that refers to the sensitivity to price change in a bond. In suggesting short duration, I'm referring to bonds that will come due, on average, in five to seven years. Staying in that range should address risk, in the event that interest rates rise.

I believe that these three approaches can give investors the opportunity to be in the markets appropriately for their age bracket, spread investment risk among different sectors, and provide the potential for meeting retirement goals.