Know Your Firearm
This may be redundant or even rhetorical for many, but the importance of knowing your firearm remains a constant. What does it mean to “know” your firearm? How does one accomplish this?
As always safety first. You must make sure your weapon is cleared and safe. Test the weight; the heft. Preform a function check; wrack the slide, squeeze the trigger, drop the mag. Test your aim point; sight alignment. With an empty safe weapon, practice drawing from the holster. With empty mags practice mag changing and then with full mags.
Field strip and clean your weapon. This further assists with familiarization and gives the bonus of a clean(er) weapon.
Prior proper planning prevents piss poor performance (or so the saying goes). Practice makes perfect. All seeming cliches, but as with many things there is a grain of truth contained therein.
Now get out there on the Second Saturday range for even more practical application.