1st solo IFR/IMC experience

You'll soon discover you'd rather fly IFR. Someone is always looking
out for you, it is simply an easier way to fly. More fun, too. The fact
that VFR people shouldn't be at your altitude is nice, that traffic is
usually called out for you, that you get nice approaches into busy
airports are all positives.

There are some negatives. Sometimes the cleared routing is a lot longer
than VFR, sometimes altitudes aren't as convenient either. I almost
always file IFR, and in VFR conditions find myself saying "Cancel IFR"
about 20% of the time for the reasons cited above.

My first actual IFR (at night, a long time ago) was a nightmare, but it
got more and more easy. You'll feel pretty secure after 10 hours as PIC
in IMC, and after about 50 or 70 actually be confident.

A couple of random thoughts: for a while your own minimums and
requirements for alternate airports should be a lot more conservative
than the regs require. When in doubt, stay on the ground or do a 180.
Flying in the northeast about 10% or my planned flights (usually
business which equals additional pressure) were cancelled because of
icing, thunderstorms, no solid gold alternate -- this in a Mooney 201
with 60 odd gallons of fuel aboard -- that's a lot of range.

FWIW, I liked to file for as high an altititude that winds aloft would
allow, it made flights from the Chicago area to New England nonstop
with lots of reserves.

Everyone has their own fuel management ideas. Mine is really simple.
I'd start up on whatever tank I was not going to take off on, taxi out
on the takeoff tank (now there's some evidence both tanks are sweet),
and fly away half that tank. Switch over, that would be maybe 90
minutes into the flight. It's worth noting that if the second tank had
gone sour there should have been enough fuel aboard to get back to the
departure airport. I'd fly most of the second tank away. No matter
where I was in the flight, even if my destination was only 45 minutes
ahead, I would land at the next available airport and refuel. I never
wanted to fly with less than 25% of the fuel still on board.

One other minor thing. Especially on homebound flights, if there wasn't
a reason to do otherwise, I always set the ADF to WBZ in Boston. The
ADF needle in effect became a second DG, and it always pointed toward
home. It makes things easier if the vacuum pump and therefore my DG
fails (that happened twice in my airplane!).

Welcome to the IFR club!