Screw the rules
It is very good to know and be aware of composition, correct exposure, to compensate or not to, but it does sometimes mess with your own creative approach.
The camera and lens is plastic, metal and glass and just tools for you to use, they should be treated as such.
A good thing is to get that perfectly exposed and composed shot out of the way and then just flip to a new page.
Try for instance to take a picture of something with the sun behind it and completely blow the whites out leaving the subject correctly exposed without the use of a flash, it might just be the shot you choose instead of the "correct" one.
Props
Absolutely no harm in using other tools than just the camera and a tripod, people have gotten cover shots of eagles diving in the water for food the photographer has brought and thrown there as bait.
Spray some water on a flower on a sunny day, who has to know ?
Be ready
Unless you are walking around with your camera out in really harsh terrain, there is no point in putting the lenscap on between every shot, you might just miss out on a killer shot by those 4-5 seconds it takes to get the cap of and focus on a moving subject.
If you know you are going towards a place where you might for instance find some birds, try to think about what settings to use before you get there, that will save you time and again you might miss out otherwise.
Revisit old places
Some pro photographers puts out just a few shots during a year, but that certainly does not mean they do not shoot lot. Even if you think you have shot a particular place to "death", you have not.
For instance my own gallery, if you look at the mountains on some of my shots you will see them appear again and again, perhaps just with a slight change of angle.
And if you have gone wideangle on the same place too many times, take out your zoom lens.
