Journal
Reading the job description twice
A small habit that has saved me from a lot of bad applications.
Most job descriptions are written by someone who is also doing eleven other things. The first read tells you what the role nominally is. The second read tells you what the team actually wants.
Look for verbs. "Build" and "ship" mean execution. "Influence" and "partner" mean the role is more political. Both are fine, but they need different cover letters.