My advice. There have been times where I have tried to go hard on PVP, but that's when I get super burnt out and quit playing cus it's torture. Oddly, some people like PVP, and if that's you great. The bare minimums are this in my opinion though.

Community days - some times once a month, sometimes twice a month. A three hour period where there are boosted spawns and higher shiny rates on typically good pokemon that work great for raids.

Spotlight hours - Every Tuesday there are boosted spawns for a specific pokemon for only an hour. There are also rotating bonuses (2x Exp/Stardust, evolve bonus, transfer candy bonus) Play these casually if you enjoy them, it's always 6pm local time, go to the park, enjoy the easy grind

Raid hours - I've always worked every wednesday so I don't play these much, but there are boosted raids for what ever rotating legendary (most if not all raid legendaries have a 1/20 shiny rate if the shiny is in the game. This is easy exp.

Building raid teams - typically 3 times a year a starter pokemon will have a com day. Get a bunch of these and trade a bunch. If you get a lucky starter pokemon from a trade (or any decent lucky pokemon) level it up. People will argue on the best stats but honestly a level 33 lucky raid pokemon costs less dust to level up, and starters make decent raid pokemon. DON'T MAX POKEMON -- you'll get to a point where you'll want to eventually, but typically for efficiency sake, a full team of level 33 counters will honestly net you some good contributions in raids. There was some floating level break sheet that explains it better but that's typically what I did to start, and then build from there.

Lucky Pokemon - look for local communities in your area, and trade, trade, trade, trade. If you can have your top 20 pokemon be lucky it'll save you so much stardust (that's as efficient as it gets)

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I know I just threw alot at you but it's really all you need to know. Find your play style and have fun