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The majority of my trips are under 2 miles in length, yet decidedly bike-unfriendly where I live. As a result, I have lots of experience with this issue. Furthermore, I've got an automatic. The single most useful thing for me has been instrumentation. Beyond that, I've found DWL to be the best technique for me. I started out a P&G devotee, but my car loses speed too quickly when in neutral. In contrast, applying a light engine load and watching the instantaneous mpg and mph has brought me better results than P&G did, save when I was EOCing, which I no longer do since I'd like to keep this car for the next several years. Additionally, air up your tires. The single biggest mechanical mod I've made this winter has been the addition of a radiator block. I've got lots of bits of cardboard in front of the radiator, which significantly decreases my warmup times (as evidenced by decreases in instantaneous gallons per hour). So in shorthand...
1. Buy or build instrumentation
2. DWL
3. Air your tires
4. Radiator block
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