Alphagrams
It turns out that competitive Scrabble players always arrange the letters on their rack in alphabetical order.
The reason makes sense: By ensuring consistency, the patterns appear. You've seen this before…
That same discipline works in most kinds of problem solving. Develop a method where you organize all the inputs, the assumptions and the variables in the same order. Consistently grouping what you see will make it ever more clear that you've seen something like this before.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.