One of the major problems when teaching short field techniques is the reluctance to feel what the aircaft is doing rather than relying on what the airspeed indicator is showing.
Make sure you know how your machine feels at low speed and forget all the "add 5kts for the wife and kids b*ll*cks" that most pilots seem to think is acceptable. With short strips you'll come a cropper very quickly with that sort of mentality.
As others have already pointed out, make sure you are aware of how much runway you will actually require and don't try to start with a very short field, but work your way down in size.
There aren't really any "tricks" as such for making short strip flying safer. If you are over loaded or don't treat the strip with respect, then there is no one trick that will keep you in one piece.
Use your common sense and practise, try setting limits on the runway you normally use, for instance touching down at a certain point and making sure you are stopped by another.
Eventually you'll be amazed at how little runway you actually need compared to others not flying "correctly."
Farm strip flying is also great fun and opens up a whole new realm of interesting places to go.
Just don't try short strips in something like a TB10 or Cherokee 140!
