Some “obvious” research workflows & shortcuts that everyone already knows:

(once someone tells you)

The general principle: most productivity is lost in *transporting* work-in-process, not in doing the actual work.
@ilovepdf_com immediately pulls PDF tables into Excel. Avoid manual data entry at all costs.

https://t.co/3cuqgOOHdu
Excel > Insert > Data from Picture lets you take a photo of any table and pull in data directly from the PNG or JPG file. Again, avoid manual data entry at all costs.
The Table Capture extension by @georgemike lets you copy HTML tables into Google Sheets or Excel. (Noticing a theme here?)

https://t.co/8Y1Jnf6N8z
Graph Reader helps you extract data points when you have an image of a chart but not the underlying dataset. It does the pixel counting for you.

https://t.co/GnvB0tEmVW
The HTML to Figma extension by @builderio lets you import any web page into @figma layers. Wonderful for understanding the graphic design of any site.

https://t.co/ItGkgXuKFI
Use OneTab to save or email links of groups of Chrome tabs. Use Cmd + Shift + A to search currently open tabs.

https://t.co/fuVc8MLtq5
Use SingleFile to download full HTML pages for offline reading. No more printing to PDF.

https://t.co/QyZzWQuOVB
^^^ If you are worried about privacy with any extension, just use one browser for all of your extensions and then another browser for day-to-day use.
Adding “site:https://t.co/Nd4n3N6Fw0” is the best Google search tip I know of.
Buy a massive whiteboard.

If you think they’re too expensive, just google “site:https://t.co/Nd4n3N6Fw0 cheap whiteboard”

https://t.co/hIRXGnEK8O
Google Custom Search Engines let you search any site with a keystroke. Just insert “%s” for the search query in the URL in Chrome > Settings > Search Engines.
Adding “login” or “account” to Google Trends searches is a decent proxy for product usage

Be wary of:
-YoY % shifts where holidays fall
-thinking more volume = positive news (negative news spreads fast)
-unknown methodology changes by Google

h/t @NolanAntonucci @ByrneHobart
You can create multiple Google Calendar events at once with a simple csv. Use this template, then Settings gear icon > Import.

Template here: https://t.co/2w0kRrDQnb
Typing “https://t.co/CyVkFU0A5H” in your Chrome browser immediately creates a new Google Calendar event.

Same idea for “https://t.co/UHnTdY0M78” for Docs and “https://t.co/PNn4vAwXxl” for Sheets.
Cloudytabs lets you open all your iPhone cloud tabs in Chrome on your Mac

https://t.co/WvJkXSY9gi
RSS lets you see feeds in one place without bookmarking 200 sites to check weekly.

@Inoreader will find RSS feeds automatically for you on any site (eg Medium articles), and https://t.co/PSIA04uco5 converts email subscriptions to RSS.
Twitter UI has hidden Advanced Search, but you can find it at https://t.co/LzI5V9EN2K and use add-ons like @TwemexApp to see any profile’s most popular tweets
To delete any page element that is blocking the thing you want to read or print out (eg a header), Right Click > Inspect > Elements > highlight the element & delete.

Now Forbes / WaPost / etc are readable.
@alfredapp lets you set your own shortcuts and launch programs immediately by pressing Cmd + Space

https://t.co/ySShwN6CwV
Mac Spotlight can search everything within your files. Save everything locally in Dropbox (PDFs, notes), which will then get indexed by Mac. Now you can type any phrase and find any mention of it.

@davidperell wrote about a similar idea here: https://t.co/IFrSFpUDJE
^^^ A $b startup-in-waiting will index everything for you to search – all emails (Gmail, Outlook), every piece of media you’ve purchased (Substack, Kindle), all chats (Discord, iMessage). I will be alpha tester #001 if you’re building this!
You can speed up your mouse on Mac. After 5 minutes you will never go back. System Preferences > Trackpad > Tracking Speed.
In your charts and tables, align your text to the left and your numbers to the right. Align your headers with the rest of the column. Remove extraneous formatting/lines/words.

Read “Remove the Legend to Become One” by @eugenewei

https://t.co/2mkwzQBdcn
@eugenewei You can safely start every podcast / youtube interview 20% of the way in.

Better yet, just transcribe it in @DescriptApp
@eugenewei @DescriptApp Learn the Excel shortcuts.

For some reason, the hardest one to remember is that the ∆ shortcut is Opt + J on Mac and 0394 + wait 2 seconds + Alt + X on Windows
@eugenewei @DescriptApp The emoji keyboard is Ctrl + Cmd + Space on Mac and Windows logo + . on Windows

🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️
Lastly, A+ work output > learning the n+1 productivity hack.

Obviously.
This was everything I could think of in 30 mins for a young financial analyst who is coming into the field.

If there’s anything else you’d add, lmk!

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