Your comment about needing a great problem statement resonates. For me, I only achieve this by really obsessing about a problem in some form of deep thought for a while.

What I wonder, based on your comment, is if I can distill exactly what I'm trying to do down to a simple statement or phrase, can I use some sort of technique to "imprint" the thought to my subconscious so it knows to go "work on this" for a while. Mind you, this may not even be a thing and this concept is all pseudo-science placebo, but it at least anecdotally rings true for me.