The one thing I wish I did different
I started with learning how to read and write, which I assume is the case for 90-95% of learners. The rare occasion in which you find this subreddit before you start learning, there's a chance you start with comprehensible input first.
Most people probably start learning, then they seek support/community then they find this subreddit. But there's also a few who finds this subreddit first (like you can see in some of the latest posts on this sub).
Either way, the thing I wish I did different is to "really" learn how to read and write. Yes, I started with the script, but I never really learned it. I put it up to faith that it would eventually stick (BIG MISTAKE). I looked at words, tried to learn them, read, looked a lot. Used my cheat sheet, etc. This is how people go years without really learning it.
That was such a big mistake. There's so much boilerplate shit you just have memorize and learn super well before you can even start. Memorize the **** out of that shit!
What I should have done is that I should've just put it all into Anki. Everything. All the consonants, all the vowels, all the silent haaw heep combination, the tones, consonant cluters, smooth clusters, irregular clusters, regular clusters. Everything. You often hear there's 44 consonants and 32 vowels, but in my deck I have 60-70 vowels. It's actually not trivial to count the number of vowels in Thai. Some of it is logic with the smoothness of yaaw yaak and waaw waen. For me specifically, I want every combination and instant recognition. I don't even want to think. It should be fully automatic.
That is my recommendation. The full deck is gonna be in the range of 150-200 cards, will take you a few weeks to a few months to learn super well. But don't bother trying to read or do anything else with the script while you doing this. If you do 5-10 cards a day this will take you less than 10 minutes a day including reviews piling up. Use time and sleep and spaced repetition as your advantage. Don't try to cram this all in one day unless you wanna waste your time. Learning Thai is hard and for most people it's gonna be a life-time committment. You NEVER EVER suspend this deck btw. Maybe you could if you get to an upper intermediate level and you get enough exposure to Thai everyday.
The one thing you could actually do while you let time do it's thing with with the script (the deck above) is that you can start learning words, or start listening to comprehensible input. Again, don't even bother trying to read before it's all locked in from the previous step (unless you wanna waste your time). Start learning vocab, every now and then you'll recognize stuff from the deck and it will reinforce it even better from looking at the script. Or you could just do comprehensible input while waiting for the script to become automatic. Once it's automatic, you start reading syllables, words, and eventually sentences (start with a generator that splits the sentence), then eventually move on to sentences with no spaces.