One interesting trick I've learned regarding "Don’t rush to StackOverflow. Think!" is that it sometimes helps me to go to StackOverflow and write out the question using clear, precise language and code examples. Nine times out of ten, the simple act of writing out the question helps me to solve the problem on my own. If it doesn't, then I can click 'submit'.

comments from last year (it's a repost): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2713736

tl;dr: Read more, learn more, and do more programming.