I realize such a topic is subjective, and of course everyone will have their own version of how to play an Elder Scrolls game. I am very interested to hear all of these, which is in large part the purpose of this thread. However, I also wanted to share what I have spent my time on to avoid frustration and burnout and enjoy the game for all it has to offer.

How I have enjoyed ESO:

Get Wykkyd's Framework and have it track your research progress, and make sure to keep things researching in your primary crafts at all times. Get everything to at least six traits each known, and then decide which ones you want to make the march to 8-traits with. (I have a feeling they will be adding some UBER 8-trait gear so it is definitely worth it.)

Do all of the 1-50 dungeons and group achievements for the skill points. Check your quest tab; there is an achievement tab there you can go down to Dungeons and check which ones you need to complete. "Group Challenge" achievements under the public dungeons are the ones that give skill points, and you get a skill point for the quest for each actual instance dungeon. (You can port to the other faction instance dungeons from any wayshrine after you have done yours at that level, so no need to wait until veteran levels, which have their own quest and another skill point.)

After 1-50 create some epic purple gear for your character with the best set bonuses for your class.

Get the SkyShards addon by Garkin and go skyshard hunting through the entire first tier of Cadwell's quest (make sure you got all the ones in the 1-50 zones as well). You will see little difference in difficulty from the veteran 1-5 zones so feel free to delve the solo dungeons and do the mini bosses there for massive XP. Do any dolmens or world bosses advertized in each zone as you visit them for more XP.

Do some random questing here and there in places in these first veteran zones you find interesting. Use the extra skyshards to experiment with new abilities for your class, paying special attention to crowd control, healing, and defensive abilities you might have overlooked in 1-50, as this will let you better adapt and enjoy the more challenging veteran levels (I have well over 200 skill points at veteran level 7).

All this should easily rank you up to veteran 6 by the time you complete the first part of Cadwell's quest and move on to the next set of zones.

Do the same here, collecting Sky Shards, doing random quests, exploring new areas, and the solo dungeons, but NEVER feel like you HAVE to stay in a certain area longer than you want. Feel free to move on, and come back to it.

I have taken this approach and have decided I will not go full completion until I have reached veteran 12, at which point I plan to create a legendary set for my character and finish out the Craglorn content as well.

PVP if and when you feel like it, though it is not really my style in ANY game. I may go take a look just to explore the zone and siege combat once I level up a little more but I personally don't enjoy zerg combat clouds or FoTM exploits which always plague the overly competitive PVP mindset (again, in any game) so I generally steer clear of that aspect of an MMO.

This has kept me from getting burned out stuck on any one thing, and made the game feel much more like a theme park than a grind.