Recent work

I would now consider myself firmly wedged in the "Intermediate" category of python programming.  I have come a long way, but have a ways to go.  Some of the recent highlights are that it has become much easier to envision how to achieve a small task and how to complete these smaller tasks in many different ways.  On the other hand, I feel that I am constantly writing things the same way:
Define variables
Import files to work on, create files to write to
Some sort of transformation (almost exclusively a for loop)
Write out results and save file

I know that there are better ways to do this (such as use a generator instead of appending to a list) but its taking a while to figure out how to do that.  Its a bit frustrating to replace the speed at which I was able to read through books and work on earlier projects to now having to feel like I am plodding along.  But I guess thats life with programming (and other problem solving strategies).