What's your favorite tricks and productive ideas you use when playing and practicing?
Here are some of my ideas, not at all ranked in order of importance:
For me, number one would be transcribing cool stuff from other players. I like doing this with John Scofield and Charlie Parker, for example.
Number two would be sitting down and analyzing what I've transcribed and figuring out ways I can apply this knowledge to my own playing.
Number three would be my legato technique. I use it to create fast licks that are usually quite easy to play, because it's mostly pull-offs and hammer-ons.
Number four, using triads and arpeggios, for both soloing and for building chords. I'll take the dorian mode for example, and create 4 note chords from that scale and keep moving up through all the 7 notes, harmonizing the whole scale that way. It's fun and creates some interesting chords!