If you're going to get skills that take a long time (mining, animal kinship, etc), do them first. Do the shorter skills when you're brain penalty has kicked in and learning is taking forever.
SchWM- that sounds like good advice I wish I had taken when I first started out. My capacity is severely penalized but it really doesn't matter that much in the long run. I started out learning the things I thought were most helpful. The animal skills needed to milk butterflies quickly, the mining skills needed to acquire those resources for additional buffs, and most importantly to me-cooking skills. I still do not have potions or powders as I can buy them or get them from friends. I only have TP2 and that works for me. I've NEVER run into a Rook attack so haven't used those skills either. Crops and herbs I do have but they were not the first path I chose and I would probably wait on them if I were just starting out.
I definitely agree with the "go for whatever you enjoy the most" advice.
That said, as someone who enjoys optimization of things, figure out a few of the things you'll enjoy and use that as a start. Then stick with a path and get as much as you can in that path. The longer skills are definitely good to learn early on with as little brain penalty as possible.
I like the animal skills. I enjoyed the nibbling/milking/squeezing and I love having remote herdkeeping to help me take care of animals in my yard without having to do the nibbling/milking/squeezing and, especially, the feeding. (there are tools that will help you with these things) Meat is good cheap energy and easy donation fodder. Also good for selling to the tool vendor and, with remote herdkeeping, you do little work for it. (just make sure your feeders are full and you collect from your collectors)
I also find teleportation insanely useful as I like to bounce all over Ur. I can easily use 5+ teleports a day. So, if I was starting afresh, I'd probably go back and forth with teleportation & animal skills at the start.
I really dislike mining. When I started again, after the reset ages ago (not a concern! we won't be reset again), I focused on mining right away. It was profitable, which was handy, but oh so grindy, which was a bit boring. Starting over today, I'm not sure I'd focus on it again so early (even though the advanced mining skills take forever). If I liked it more, that would be different, but the economy is a bit more balanced now.
Also, back when we were reset, I ignored the fruit/spice/bubble/gas skills. I think they were last on my list because they were so short. Then they introduced potion making and I had to make a bunch of fruit and bubbles and gas and had a load of failures when converting things. That really kinda sucked. So I got them as quickly as I could. They are definitely useful. You can probably hold off on them a bit - especially if you don't find yourself going for skills that require a lot of converted things.
Herbalism and potionmaking... I love it! It is one of my favorite things in the game. It came around after I had gotten most of my skills, but if I were starting now... getting to the point where I could make potions would be a high priority.
So, based on things I enjoy... I'd probably fill out the animal & teleportation trees. Then get potionmaking. If you like making furniture, you might want to focus on those. If you like mining, definitely do that. The trick, though (for optimization), is to fill out one skill set as far as you want to go and then go for another. Generally speaking, the more advanced a skill is, the longer it will take to learn. You want to learn the long ones first (or, well, as early as possible).
In the end it all generally works out, so this is not something to stress over.
Personally I think the easiest route is Animal Kinship, since not only do you get a nice bit of iMG, you get lots of meat etc to sell / craft / donate, but every interaction provides +mood, so you don't have to think about keeping your mood up hardly at all.
I like Animal Kinship too. The ones I used the most early on were the basic gathering ones-- animal kinship and the tree-related ones (I think they were botany?). However, it has been a long time since I started playing, and the game's changed a bit since then.
Glitch is a self-directed game, though, and so picking skills based on what you find fun is always good advice :)
Oh, and optimization is so not necessary in Glitch. I'm just a freak about things like that - and I know I'm not alone. But if you are not an optimizer by nature, it's probably a good idea to bounce around the skill tree and try loads of things. And, from there, focus on the ones you like. In that case, I'd probably suggest getting the gathering sorts of skills first (a couple animal skills, a couple botany & gardening skills, mining, jellisacs, etc). They'll be a decent introduction to the various resources and help you figure out where to go from there :)
I would advise a little study of what skill is required for what before you jump in. I wanted to get to furniture making right away, so I worked up to that skill first, only to learn that I wouldn't actually be able to make furniture until I also had a bunch of other skills necessary to wrangle furniture parts (wood, metal, etc.).