I have a friend whom I mastermind with and work on various business projects with. I noticed that we compared research notes, she was way ahead of the gam and had much more relevant, in depth research.
If you are reading this blog, chances are you are very similar to me in that you want to get the most out of your time, and that you really love to find out the right information - and fast!
I racked my brains as to how she was doing it - was it keywords? search terms… or even a magic trick?
Then I did the sensible thing and just asked her - my mystery was revealed!
Here are a couple of tips that I learned from her, and what I have since discovered:
1. Exact phrasing - if you want to bring up the exact term that you are searching, simply put quotation marks before/after the term. e.g. “productive research”
2. Using similar words - if you want to broaden your search by including synonyms, and exact phrasing isn’t imperative, just use ~ as a prefix. e.g. ~sales training
3. Include terms - when you want to search terms simultaneously e.g. yoga classes + Newcastle. This will give you a more comprehensive search than yoga classes Newcastle.
4. Use a wildcard to match one or more words in a phrase. E.g. joint ventures *products *marketing
Happy researching!