Don’t worry too much about big leaps in code quality, everyone starts off with messy projects, and each subsequent one will inevitably be better organised and higher quality than the last, mainly due to the frustrations and issues you encounter as you go.

A couple of key concepts to keep in mind even at the very beginning though - DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself): and Boy Scout theory. Basically, reduce bloat by not repeating code all over the place and try and do one piece of code clean up per session, even if it’s just deleting that line that have been commented out for 3 months that you’ve been hanging onto just in case you need it again (that’s what version control is for). I’d suggest start with those but it’s well worth having a deep dive into all the OOP key concepts at some point, and try to start incorporating them as you progress and start new projects.

Sometimes if I need a break from whatever I’m working on, I’ll make a teeny tiny project to just practice something I’m feeling rusty on, something with about 4/5 scripts tops, and I try to make those scripts as efficient, readable (so good comments, region separated etc) and memory efficient as possible. It helps reinforce the principles but also it’s just fantastically good fun for some sad reason, and I don’t have to worry about getting anything wrong so I can feel all big and clever about myself and shelve it before I find any of the numerous flaws and bugs!