Leave yourself enough time. For the last weight cut that I did, I managed to lose around 23 pounds in about 5 weeks. I probably could have done the same weight cut in 4 weeks (and a younger me would have tried to), but the more weight you try to lose in a shorter amount of time, the more you risk a bad performance in your matches.

Weigh your food and track your calories. Weighing my food makes me feel like more of a bodybuilder than a grappler, but it's the best way to guarantee that you aren't overeating. I've done diets from coaches and crash diets, but the easiest way I've found to lose weight is to simply figure out my maintenance calories and track what I eat.

Stay focused on performance in training. You never train quite as well on a cut as when you're not cutting. You feel a little tired, your legs may feel heavy, and your cardio isn't as good. It doesn't matter - keep training hard (but emphasize safety). You won't feel any of that on tournament day if you do the cut right. I moderated my training volume a bit as well, especially in the last few weeks of the cut.

Add easy ways to burn more calories into your daily routine. My girlfriend and I have 2 dogs. Every night, we take them out on a nice walk. During the diet part of the weight cut, we just made the walks a little longer. I also added 20-30 minutes of low-impact cardio as well.

Water-cutting. This is the last part of weight-cutting, and most people shouldn't do it. If your weigh-in is really close to your match time (IBJJF, for example), it's just not worth it. One day I may a specific post about how water cutting can help you lose 10-20 extra pounds.