1: Always check the TV to see what your luck will be on the current day. If it says that "The spirits are very happy today.", then your luck is at its peak for that day. You can benefit greatly from spending most of the day in the mines to rack up on ore and geodes. Conversely, it may not be very time efficient to go into the mines on a day that your luck is bad.

2: Use the hardwood that your farm provides at the start of a new game wisely. Once it's gone, there's only one other place you can go to replenish it daily at a slow rate.

3: Some items are liked by all villagers, like fried eggs or carp. Since villagers will send you things in the mail once they like you enough, it's very beneficial to spread out your attention beyond just your love interest. If you have a surplus of an item that all villagers like, go on a gifting spree.

4: If you are interested in making your farm intricately detailed, don't try in game. You could easily make a mistake and have long term problems. Instead, use this. https://stardew.info/planner/

5: If you see a floor tile with 3 little worms wiggling around on it, always use your hoe on it. You'll usually dig up something good. These tiles are much more plentiful and easy to spot in the winter.

6: If you know that a multiple yielding crop (corn, beans, tomatoes) is not going to have enough days for another harvest before the end of a season, then there's no point in watering it anymore. In fact, you could save yourself some time when the new season comes by just removing those crops as soon as you know they're worthless. (However! Do not do this if you used fertilizer on those crops. Removing the crops prematurely and not replacing them on the same day will cause you to lose some of the fertilized soil.)

7: The first day of a new season can be your most important and busy day. Buy all of your multiple yielding crops and get them planted ASAP. Nothing is more painful in this game than knowing that if your enormous corn fields had just one more day, they would give you another harvest before the next season. Well....except for maybe turning your first legendary fish into a sushi roll by accident. I should've never left that thing in the fridge...

8: (The following will likely be patched in the future) - If you're using a game pad of some sort to play, you may experience an issue with your watering can putting water outside of where you're aiming. I believe this is a result of your cursor being nearby and overwriting what the green indicator is saying. If this happens (it happens to me quite often), just open and close your menu. A mildly annoying, but easy fix.

9: Build some lightning rods as soon as they become available and set them somewhere. Lightning storms are very infrequent, meaning if you don't get one when you need it, you'll have to resort to hoping the traveling merchant that comes once a week will eventually have some for sale.

10: About the traveling merchant, always go and see her every week. Often you can find an item that you need for your community center. Instead of buying a pomegranate tree and waiting for it to grow to get a pomegranate for your community center, you could just buy one from the traveling merchant. She'll gouge you on the price, sure, but it's worth it.

11: Rarecrows perform the same function as scarecrows.

12: If you hear a splash of water sound effect, it means that a prime fishing spot or ore panning spot has spawned somewhere in your current zone.