The hardest part about effectively using R is finding the best packages for the problem you are trying to solve. I think this is even more important than being fluent in the language itself, which you will pick up along the way as you start using R more frequently. However, building your code on reliable foundations is essential for good results, and difficult to fix later on in a project.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://ropensci.org/blog/2023/02/27/runiverse-discovering/