Welcome to Glitch! Check out the Glitch wiki at Glitch Strategy. They can be very helpful! And don't be afraid to ask questions, certainly. Sometimes you can get your answers by searching the forums, but that search engine can be kind of contrary. Uhmm... That's all I can think of for the moment, though I'm sure many more will chip in. :)
Next time you're in game IM me and I'll meet you with one of my starter bags I make and hand out to new players...lots of goodies inside that'll help you on your way :)
Hi!!!
1.Harvest as much as you can from animals, butterflies, and trees, but don't forget to pet, water, and feed them.
2. Donate to the shrines as often as you can, can be little things, so when you want to learn a skill way down the road that needs a shrine emblem to be spent, you'll have enough "favor" from them.
3. Be nice, give hugs to fellow glitches, and don't be afraid to ask questions or for help. We are nice. :D
(To add to what Arii said about papers:
You can also get the CCQ and papers from the Bureaucratic Halls in Andra (Chego Chase) and Muufo (Baeli Bray).)
Take this under advisement, cos efficiency ISNT usually the best way to play (less fun) however...
The fastest method of learning skills is to pick the line of skills which has the longest time to learn the last skill and then do the whole line. Each skill you learn makes every other skill you learn take proportionally longer. So learning lots of little skills can really push those longer skills like Mining IV and Gardening V into taking days and days and days.
Better to learn the whole of the Mining Tree, the Gardening Tree, Tinkering Tree etc and only push up the smaller skills like Bubble Tuning, Gasmogrification, Eyeballery and Penmanship by an hour or so, than do it the other way around and learn Bubble Tuning, Gasmogrification, Eyeballery and Penmanship and push up Mining IV, Gardening V, Tinkering V up by 3 days (my guess for times).
That is from a purely efficiency outlook though, obviously you're going to probably want to have fun and mess around with interesting skills too, but it is worth generally concentrating on those long chains whilst adding in the little ones at a slower rate.
(Oh and Better Learning will serve you really well too)