Nix is big. I’m a total newbie after a year but here has been what helped me
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accept that nix curve is steeped than vim, yet unlike vim which is reinforcing, nix makes you. Forget things , because, well, you write something only once. I solve this problem by not installing programming language stuff globally. If you’re doing something new, spend five minutes to write a .nix file.
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master the very basics of language, and then understand the tools gradually with intuition. There are multiple ways of doing things. I just use nixos-rebuild and Nix- shell. It’s better to be expert at one tool than know flags of all
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not nixpkgs related, but NixOS related- what helps a lot (if you have prior linux experience) is to browse arch or Gentoo wiki for a topic first, understand it in a framework you are already familiar with and then understand it in nix way.