trick of the trade

plural tricks of the trade

1. idiomaticA shortcut or other quick, or very effective way of doing things, that professional workers learn from experience.

   Most customers won't notice this trick of the trade, since the part is not sat upon.

   2006, Ed van Hinte, Under Cover: Evolution of Upholstered Furniture, page 60

   4 more examples

   For the most part, he has some knack, or trick of the trade, which by close inspection can be delected, and so the heart of his mystery be seen into.

   1858, Thomas Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, page 130

   There is no trick of the trade which he does not know, no artifice which he does not which he does not habitually practise.

   1861, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, page 520

   We spent a lot of time up on the staging of the great furnaces, trying to pick up the tricks of the trade from the taciturn furnacemen who sat around placidly smoking, or chewing twist, and occasionally throwing in more pig iron to the molten white-hot metal.

   1945 January and February, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—III”, in Railway Magazine, page 14

   47 ♦ Don't waste time learning the "tricks of the trade." Instead, learn the trade.

   1991, Life's Little Instruction Book: 511 Suggestions, Observations, and Reminders on How to Live a Happy and Rewarding Life, H. Jackson Brown Jr., published by Rutledge Hill Press