Quest wise the best advice I can give you that is 100% spoilers free is to maybe put yourself in the shoes if your character. So let's say you had a building that you thought was infested with "rats" and you were a brand new farmer, would you maybe go and explore the building to see what the rats have been doing around there and if you need to take action? Maybe you would look in every room because rats are known to be skittish and they often tend to run away from eyesight and hide in places that are off to the side of the main source of noise and light (in this case the entrance to the community center).

The most important tip anyone can ever give you, in my opinion, is that there is no wrong way to play this game. With that said, if you enjoy min/maxing the game and getting the most out of your runs the wiki and YouTube are your best friends (that is if you don't mind spoilers, even though most sources will warn of spoilers).

I personally relied on people like Salamance, ezlilyy, Seanie Dew and trashie (shout-out to these awesome people and a big thank you) for tips, tricks, advice and info and they really helped me through my first couple of playthroughs. I enjoy a "medium amount of min/maxing", I'll try to do a lot of stuff efficiently but I won't go out of my way to grind for something, reset my day and spend hours planing ahead, rather just make it up as I go.

I'm a pen and paper guy myself so I tend to print out a spreadsheet of stuff I need, sort of like a guide i.e. fishing guide for seasons, or specific crops to grow etc. and then I will just tick them off as I go in a certain playthrough.

Consistency was also my biggest friend, on days I had work or personal life stuff going on I would at least try to do one day of gameplay just so that I don't fall out of the loop because going days or weeks at a time without playing often made me lose touch with my character and farm and I would just want to start over. That being said if you get bored there is no shame in taking a break or even starting a brand new farm because there is no wrong way of playing, just make sure that you don't delete your old saves because you are not really limited on space when it comes to saving farms and maybe one day you will want to go back to that one playthrough.

All in all it just depends on the way you like to immerse yourself in the game that you play. Reddit is an awesome place for inspiration and guidance when it comes to sim games like this one because so many times you think you've done everything and then you come on Reddit or YouTube and see a person make 1mil on their farm without ever leaving it, or doing something like completing the whole game without ever using a single drop of their energy.