The thing I do is listening to the songs I like thru brainworx’s bx_solo, I listen only the sides. This way I flagged way more phase inversion / phase cancellation choices than I initially thought. It helped me to understand when and why. It is a hard choice to do but a phase inverted second snare or clap in the back can provide huge depth and space in your mix.
I like to invert left or right on a ghost snare, or sometimes on the little filler sounds I use.
However it is crucial to equalize the sides by shelfing or cutting under 250/300hz.
I became used to phase invert / phase cancel / manipulate the phase of every sound and every part on my song. When it sounds ass or ruins my brain I don’t do it, but 50% of the times I’m discovering some dimension in my song I wasn’t aware of, and I can use that dimension to increase overall depth and space.
On some top billboard songs, I discovered that that technique is used (while listening only to the sides), this is why I began to experiment like crazy with Live’s Utiliy or (way better) DMG’s Trackcontrol.
It is also very useful while layering stuff.