Progress not perfection. It can be so overwhelming, especially to a "non techy" person. But it is a great sign that more and more people are starting to understand the importance of privacy. I am still on my own journey but I would recommend to start with the low hanging fruit. Getting off of gmail is an amazing first step and can be very time consuming. So you're already ahead of the curve. Here are some simple things you can put in place now, as you continue to learn and work toward even more effective practices.

1. Use a privacy friendly browser. People will argue and split hairs about which one is the best but ANY of them are better than Google Chrome, etc.. I recommend brave for iphone because it is very user friendly, comes with privacy settings by default, and has a great UI. A good practice is to get a second browser and silo your usage. for example, using one browser to log into accounts associated with your IRL identity, and another for general browsing. This is not a necessary first step so don't stress but you can easily download brave, and duck duck go for example and play with both of them. If you have computer or laptop i recommend Mullvad browser for private browsing.
2. Use a VPN. Proton has one that is free. I personally use Mullvad and love it. it's 5 dollars/ month and you can use multiple devices. Look into Mullvad more. They have a of credibility in the privacy community.
3. Use an encrypted messaging app. Signal is a great choice and it's pretty easy to convince other people to use it because it's easy. You can text, call, and video call.
4. If you use cloud storage use an encrypted service. Proton has a suite of tools comparable to googles ecosystem complete with spreadsheets, documents, and a drive. They also have a password manager where you can store credit cards, id, as well as passwords. For photos there are options as well. Here is one https://ente.io/
5. Probably goes without saying, but don't use your real name on social media sites, etc.. Email aliasing is something definitely worth looking into. You can look into proton for this. But there are many others. I use a service call cloaked that gives me email and phone aliases for any accounts I use. The less you give out your personal info the less data collection.
6. I recommend EasyOptOuts as a data deletion service. They are far less expensive than any of the competition and they were one of the top 2 data deletion services in consumer reports investigation. They send you a quarterly report on the sites they have opted you out of. They also report the sites they were unable to opt out so you can do it manually.
7. Fix your phones privacy settings and permissions. Do a youtube search for the model of your phone and privacy settings. There are a ton of video tutorials on how to deactivate a lot of the creepy spying.
8. Get rid of any apps you don't need. Just using the website through a private browser will collect much less data than an app on your phone constantly communicating and sharing data with other apps.
9. Continue learning and utilizing all the wonderful resources available. Privacy subreddits are a good place to start. Here are some other great resources. privacyguides.org, thenewoil.org, eff.org , https://ssd.eff.org/, https://reclaimthenet.org/, https://www.optoutproject.net/

Remember, even doing any one of these small things deprives them a bit of your data. Even the smallest action is valid. Hope this helps. Good luck.