One very important and often neglected task is to make sure the tip is always clean.
I clean my tip regularly (every 5 - 10 solder joints or so) on the build in sponge (should be moist not wet) in my sulderstations stand.
If you don't clean the tip regularly, a layer of "dirty oxidized" solder will quickly build up on the tip making it a very frustrating experience to work with. This can lead to solderjoints that have way too much solder sitting in a large blob with no proper connection to the circuit board.
A dirty tip will also wear out faster.