Some other hints for beginners:

(besides mentioning that stats help -- you want that mining jewelry to be Strength, not Power)
Anything that raises the appropriate stat will help, like potions, jewelry, or stat buffs in unused armor locations.

Gift of Alacrity will speed up your gathering rate, so do abilities that raise attack speed/lower delay (like Ranger's Energize), and they stack.

When smelting/spinning/stoneworking/etc., you can raise your processing skill by using player-made buildings. The expert biped buildings will add 75 skill levels. You can also use these to scribe a formula that you can't normally scribe because of its high skill requirement; go to the machine, and start creation of another item, then scribe the formula while the creation window is open.

Some raw material spawns have two locations, and one of the locations will become nearly empty if the other isn't harvested. (e.g., flax and also kenaf on Fabric Isle).