For any problem I face in real life, I start to break it down to make it more manageable pieces. Eg, my wife would say the bank is over charging us in their bank feeds. I would break that down to what fees are we talking about, how are we using the accounts to cause the fees etc. It drives my wife nuts.

One bad habit that could be attributed to programming is that I don't remember much anymore. I just jump into SO or wikipedia etc to get the information, and I also keep a bunch of notes in my pocket for "all the things I need to remember".