Best technique I've found recently: The Ugly Notebook, from Jenna Glatzer's Outwitting Writer's Block. Take a plain notebook you won't feel obligated to protect against useless words, tawdry cliches, and food stains, and use it as your writing warm-up. Write down random thoughts that come to you during the day. Free write. For me, that means using a single word to set off a chain of concepts that, even if they don't have anything to do with my storyline, generate creative energy. I might even find one single word that sparks off an idea I would never have gotten in my normal writing attempts.

Learn to love your ugly notebook.