Hammer and Chisel versus Soaking
Another thing to try is this: take a problem and try to hit it very hard for two weeks straight. At the end of the two weeks write up what you have. Then file it away. This is what Liming suggested. If the problems are chosen well, experience will overlap strongly and eventually you will have the right facts to solve some nice problems.
This is, sort of, hammer and chisel. Somehow the prospect of payoff may help focus the mind better than the longterm development. If the problems are hard, and you give yourself a deadline, the effect may be the same, though. You will collect things in one place, get stuck, and then move along to another problem. (The new problem will probably be related to the old ones, strongly, and it is as likely that you will find the right fact for another earlier problem while working on the new one as if you were just staring at the one problem forever.)
The important thing is to try really really hard to solve the problem and carefully write things up and then move along.
In fact, the blog may be the best place to collect failed attempts, because the blog is easily searchable. Not sure about this until the numbers of projects/problems tried gets high. It may be better to write drafts and link to them on the webpage.
