For my new huge project, i did some research so I would work less. I started with cake php and after one week learning i decided that it is no good for me. My last project is not a web site and cakephp looks like it is done for making blogs and news pages.
Then i started to look at ZEND FRAMEWORK. It is a lot more flexible then cakephp and i also didnt needed scafolding. So after learning about a week I started to work on the project. In the begining it went very well, but after 2 month the pain started. I just got to lazy and depended on the framework.
On my earlier projects I allways wrote a small framework which would help me to work through the project. If i had to write something more than twice, I decided to write a function or even better an object.
When i work with zend framework, i just skipped the first process and started to write hardcoded in to the actions. Now as things get more complicated I have a great lack of my usual objects and classes.
So i learned, never get layz of writing the helpers of a project. Take around 30% in the begining of a project for writing your own objects. This will also help you to solve problems even before they occur.