The key to drawing, as well as to painting, is to look at the world around you in terms of basic shapes. By doing so you begin to see the foundational structure of the object or objects, therefore allowing you to build off of a framework that will guide you to a more accurate representation of your subject.
The worst thing you can do is to give things a name. Once you have identified the reference with a name you automatically have hidden biases about what that object is and how it should look. Giving things names makes it impossible to look at them objectively. This also applies to abstract work as well. Think only in terms of basic shapes.