Factorio isn’t like work as much as it tickles the same spots on my brain that my favorite parts of work do as well. After putting in 2K+ hours to the game I have the follow suggestions/advice for new/experienced players:
* Play your first game without mods (or very limited QoL mods)
* Don’t use blueprints from others online (at least in your first play through), you can watch videos if you are truly stuck but copy/pasting what others have done can ruin the fun
* Don’t always try to min/max. If that’s what you like then more power to you but I often guess at things or over-provision because it lets me keep playing and not get bogged down
* Before you look for blueprints online use something like Helmod or Factory Planner, blueprints can really ruin the game for me at least. The one exception is belt balancers, those are fine to copy. You can share your own blueprints between games but taking blueprints from online feels too much like cheating. Study them and reproduce them if you need to but I promise it will be more satisfying to do it yourself rather than just plopping down what someone else did.
* Don’t try to build the best or “final” version of something at first. As in, build what you need now and re-evaluate later when it’s not enough. I’ve ruined the “fun” before because I was too hung up on making a production line too complicated/large/etc too early. Don’t make your first smelting operation at a scale you’d use in late game, you’ll build a new smelting setup later and that’s fine.
* Go into the game blind, don’t research “the best way to do X”, your first (few) play throughs will be more fun if explore and learn on your own.