The following Tip is about practicing music, but the underlying idea can be applied to most creative and artistic activities. In music, our language includes scales, chords, rhythms, etc. What is the language of your art, and how can you become more fluent in it?
Moving in a variety of ways keeps your attention fresh and helps you fit the jigsaw puzzle pieces of life together. There are common scale patterns, rhythmic patterns and chord progressions that you can practice as etudes and then plug into actual songs. But the exercise of discovering or creating new patterns also helps your ability to look for and recognize patterns. This will help you become a better sight reader, improviser, and overall musical person.