Unless you can time the exact long term bottom of markets, every investor will face some drawdowns. You seem to suggest that timing the market is necessary for lesser drawdowns. That will make market timing a necessity; what about those investors who don’t follow the macro or don’t have the skills to time the market? And what about the loss of opportunity if you didn’t enter or got out too early?
I feel that one can achieve relatively low drawdown with careful stock selection and does not need to time the markets. If your drawdowns are lower than market, and the earning of businesses you own are growing, you may not panic even in events like 2008. Even better if you maintain some funds in fixed deposit always, to be used only in case of events like 2008. That way, you spend the necessary time in market, without missing the opportunity extreme fall of market can provide.
I don’t want to brag, but I have managed to do that (achieve lower drawdown than index in current market). You may see the portfolio I shared here
I started investing in considerable amounts since mid-2017, lured in by the 2017 bull run, but I have managed to keep my drawdowns in single digit, even though the midcaps are clearly in bear market since January 2018. That is because my biggest investments are in stocks like Dmart, Bandhan, InfoEdge, etc, accumulated whenever they fell considerably, each accumulation point higher than the previous one mostly, and I have never averaged down my initial positions in stocks that qualify only as good, but not the best, even as they fell considerably. (I do have an initial position in Khadim and TVS Srichakra). Neither have I tried investing in murky opportunities like DHFL. You can say I have used some elements of market timing, but they were stock specific, not trying to time the market index.