I was thinking about how Beliefs Must Pay Rent the other day, because my wife is much better than me at noticing when this isn't happening. One major trick to this is that she always asks (at least internally), "So what?"

That is, rather than immediately finding a way to attack whatever it is that the other person said, she considers whether what they've said affects anything in their argument. One line of inquiry is, "can I concede this point and still win?" But "so what?" goes further than that -- it helps her internally understand if there is anything of substance to the argument. If the answer (in her mind) to "so what?" is, "that would be bad", then there at least might be some substance there. But if there is no answer, she asks the question out loud, to see whether she's missing something, or whether there really is no valid belief at all.

Note: this is my paraphrasing of her technique; she may or may not endorse this interpretation.