Always leave (at least) 1 bar of pre-roll before the actual start of the track.
Write down accomplished tasks at the end of each session.
Mind gain differences between tracks, so that almost everything is balanced before mixing.
Get great sounds in front of the microphone, not behind it.
The amount of effort required to pull out greatness out of a music piece grows exponentially the further you get into the production process: mixing won't make anything bad good.
Corollary: be honest about the original performance, if it sucks, recording won't save it. Better work on being an awesome performer than spilling energy and willpower in post-production tricks.
Recording is like drawing, you have to do a hundred rough shitty drawings in order to learn how to do a great one.
Bad vocals will make a great instrumentation sound terrible.