I have a job kicks off every 5 minutes and queries active requests and joins session info, t-sql statement, cpu/io/duration, etc. into a table on my local instance. Also, a while back I added tempdb and transaction log usage, so I can monitor and archive that as well.

Adding an index here and there can switch hash joins or sort operations to merge joins, and not only speed up processing but also use less tempdb allocation. To reduce transaction logging, look for procedures that perform multiple updates and consolidate them into one single update.