• make a weigh paper taco – fold a piece of weigh paper in half, weigh onto it, then paper funnel into your container
• use a squirt water bottle (with the distilled or MilliQ water) to wash anything that’s stuck on the weigh paper or weigh boat into your container
• add the solid to liquid – don’t just pour liquid onto a pile of powder or grainy stuff or you’ll end up with a big clump
  • but only add to part of the final volume (typically ~%75 of the volume you want – more if not adding much, less if adding a lot and/or you need to leave room to pH adjust)
  • remember – don’t trust the lines on beakers – they’re approximations so don’t let your liquid get too close to the line you want!
  • after things are dissolved, remove magnet with magnet fisher stick thing or hold a magnet on the outside to keep the magnet from moving, & pour into a graduated cylinder to top off to the desired final volume
    • when you get close, you can use the squirt bottle to add the last of the water needed to get right to that “bottom of the meniscus on the desired line” point without overshooting it
• for best results, pour a bit at a time into liquid with stir bar on stir plate rather than all at once – this helps prevent clumps &/or the stir bar getting stuck in “the beach” (all that sandy grainy stuff that’s settled on the bottom of the beaker)
• also prevent clumps by not leaving container lids open more than necessary and closing them tightly when you’re done with them
• if there are clumps in your stuff, crush them up before you try to get the stuff to dissolve
  • you can use a weigh spatula, glass rod, mortar & pestle, and/or zap in a sonicator bath to help break things up 
• look at recipes to see if there are any special notes for preparation and/or storage (do you need to filter sterilize, autoclave, wrap in foil to protect from light, put in fridge? freezer?)
• also check recipes for any note about pH – example: EDTA – won’t dissolve until pH >~8, so you need to add NaOH when attempting to dissolve it
• make sure you’re calculating how much to weigh out based on what you’re actually weighing out!
  • check name & formula to make sure it’s the right thing- beware of monobasic vs dibasic potassium buffer compounds
  • even if it’s the right “main thing” check the hydrate state (how many waters are complexed with it) may be different than what your recipe is based on – this is usually okay to use still, you just need to adjust your calculations because the formula weight (FW) (how many g a mol of the stuff weighs) will be different for different ones (cuz water adds weight) so you want to make sure you calculate taking that into account so you get the right amount of the “main thing” 
  • more on doing these calculations: http://bit.ly/solutionconcentrations & http://bit.ly/sciencestocksolutions

More random practical lab tips & tricks: https://bit.ly/lab_tricks_page

more about all sorts of things:  #365DaysOfScience All (with topics listed) 👉 http://bit.ly/2OllAB0 or search blog