I'm wanting to do more readings with my Hermetic Deck, but I'm finding the version of the Celtic Cross suggested in the LWB (version by Godfrey Dowson) to be a little long for my schedule at the moment.

I know there must be a bazzillion spreads out there, but wondering if someone with experience with this deck (or similar) would recommend a spread 4-6 cards approx so I don't loose my mind while learning this system. I'm yet to buy any books on the subject, so I don't know if there are any 'Golden Dawn preferred' spreads, nor have I really experimented with 'free reading' yet - putting down cards till the story has been told. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
 

I use the Hermetic tarot but because there is a lot of detail in the cards I find large spreads don't work.

 

Here's a straight forward 5 card spread I use fairly regularly:

 

1: Goal for the day

2: Task to be accomplished to achieve goal

3: Obstacle to completing task

4: How to overcome obstacle

5: Quintessence card - overall message of the reading.

 

The Quintessence card is the major arcana card that represents the overall message. It is not drawn from the deck; use numerology to determine the card. Add up the values of the other cards (Pages=4, Knights=3, Queens=2, Kings=1) and keep adding the numbers until you get a number = 21 or less. That is the Quintessence card.

 

This is the spread I use to help provide focus for the day.

 

Hi @Wheel of Fantastic!

My apologies I just saw that you responded to this - not sure how I missed that. 
I love the spread you suggested - I'm going to try it out tonight! I love the use of numerology also - very interested to see how that goes.