One of the primary problems I have been having recently is reducing the landscape to a few elements. I find something interesting, but I often find it difficult to reduce a scene to down to one element when there is so much visual chaos.
First of all, ask yourself: "What's the point of me stopping here to photograph? What, exactly, has caught my eye and is begging me to photograph it?" If you don't have an answer then your might be better spent moving on to find something that grips you emotionally or catches your eye.
Once you've been "gripped", pare the scene down to its most badic elements. Move and compose to eliminate anything that pulls you away from what initially grabbed your attention and work towards emphasizing what it was that caught your eye.
Next, try looking beyond the subject to the elements that make up a photograph: contrast, texture, colour, shape, lighting. Which of those can you take advantage of in the scene before you? And, which of them do you need to work at to better emphasize?
Here's another suggestion, one that I always have workshop participants do... Take your first shot, then work towards making a second photograph of the same scene, but in a completely different way. Change the focal length, change your perspective, move to get entirely different lighting (back instead of side or front), change the format - do whatever it takes to make the second photo different. It may not work right away, but it us forcing you to think of alternatives. It'so a lack of seeing alternatives that gets us into ruts.
I know where your coming from. I was out today in the glorious spring weather and the elements would simply not conspire in my favour. So, I just walked and enjoyed the spring warmth, the bird song and the frog calls, knowing that inspiration is often serenditious. I could have made something of a couple of set-ups, but couldn't see the point - I just knew there was nothing beyond a 7.5 or 8/10. Sometimes it's better to take pass.
One fellow I worked with years ago (ouch! - decades ago!) suggested there are only 6 perfect days for photography in a given year. He was referring to nature and outdoor photography. Looking back at my work, he is about right.