Hi JMC3. I'm not so sure that being overly cautious is a bad thing. We only fly for professional filming. When we started using a drone a few years ago (
P4P+), we knew of a documentary company that had already crashed three of them - one in the cameraman's back garden and another in the Amazon (yes, rainforest - not warehouse).
My first flight was on, liftoff, up to 1m or 3ft, hover, down again, off. Overly cautious? Perhaps.
We work mainly overseas in challenging situations and I've yet to crash.
Pre-flight checklist? Is your brain switched on? This is by far the biggest one.
We have a piece of purple ribbon about the gimbal lock or protector as it needs to be taken off before starting up We have a similar system for the
Mini 2's gimbal cover which is now an additional tool for us.
Always check battery level.
There are a few other pre-flight things, but psychology or alertness is absolutely number one. And for everything else in life.