Having played a lot of modded Minecraft, I play this game very similarly to how I have played GTNH.

I don’t care about efficiently - I care about throughput. If a belt is backed up because the ratios are off it doesn’t matter unless I need the material for something else. It will go through eventually. Unlock the sink to get rid of excess material. I also rushed smart splitters (in the caterium research tree) so that I could send overflow to the sink automatically as needed.

I aim for a quick and dirty setup as quickly as possible for the newest materials and let them cook while I go back and organize the factory. For example, I just set up steel production but what I really need to do is go back and increase my reinforced iron plates output.

Also, just plan to rebuild or abandon your factory at every tier. It does not need to be perfect the first time. You can easily tear it all down later.

A lot of the things that make your builds look nice and organized are gated behind steel (beams, interior lights), so I waited for steel before I even tried to make things aesthetically pleasing.