• Learn to expose properly. Achieving a good exposure is something easy to achieve once you know how (relatively easy depending on the situation) and it basically boils down to "righting" the histogram, or exposing for the lights. Forget about Automatic modes and learn to expose fully manually.
• Learn to properly develop your photos. There're some real good video tutorials out there to actually develop your photos. If you're exposing correctly chances are the photo won't look good when you see it on the display (and that's fine because you're only worried about the histogram anyway). You want to be able to turn that correctly exposed but lacking contrast photo into a proper final product that better resemble what you were seeing when you took the photo.
• Learn the difference results from modifying apperture vs shutter speed and DOF and how (keeping a good exposure) the effect changes in the photo.

This is as far as the technical part. It shouldn't take you long to learn the basic theory (a couple of hours in the internet should be enough)... then you go out and practice till you get it right.

Focus on composition Light is important and you DEFINITEVELY need to understand it BUT you can take great pictures with almost any light as long as the composition is right and you understand what you're doing with the camera. So instead of just taking pictures try focusing on what you want to transmit and try to learn the different methods to do it. Do I want to isolate the subject from the background? How am I going to relate the foreground with the background? Am I looking for a chil soft tone or a very dynamic photo? Start small, with a few elements in the photo and try to compose with that (and in that sense I find landscape with wide angle lenses to be really difficult as you need to balance a lot of elements). Then expand to include more elements in your composition.

Learn the light Learn what you can about the light and the different "kinds" of light. Cenital vs lateral vs back light. Strong vs soft lights and how the different lighting affects the final result. You're eyes are capable of capturing an incredible amount of information but the camera sensor isn't. A frontal light, for example, will tend to make the picture look flat which in most cases is not what you want. Understanding the light is, in my point of view, one of the most complex topic, and one that is really important and absolutely necessary in the long term but not the most important to learn first. Not because is not important but because if you take enough shots you'll get every kind of lighting condition and you'll learn from it anyway.

• Learn to expose properly. A good exposure is easy to achieve once you know how (relatively easy depending on the situation) and it basically boils down to "righting" the histogram, or exposing for the lights. Forget about Automatic modes and learn to expose fully manually.
• Learn to properly develop your photos. There're some real good video tutorials out there to actually develop your photos. If you're exposing correctly chances are the photo won't look good when you see it on the display (and that's fine because you're only worried about the histogram anyway). You want to be able to turn that correctly exposed but lacking contrast photo into a proper final product that better resembles what you were seeing when you took the photo.
• Learn the different results from modifying aperture vs shutter speed and DOF and how (keeping a good exposure) the effect changes in the photo.

This is the technical part. It shouldn't take you long to learn the basic theory (a couple of hours in the internet should be enough) then you go out and practice till you get it right.

Focus on composition Light is important and you DEFINITEVELY need to understand it BUT you can take great pictures with almost any light as long as the composition is right and you understand what you're doing with the camera. So instead of just taking pictures try focusing on what you want to transmit and try to learn the different methods to do it. Do I want to isolate the subject from the background? How am I going to relate the foreground with the background? Am I looking for a chill soft tone or a very dynamic photo? Start small, with a few elements in the photo and try to compose with that (and in that sense I find landscape with wide angle lenses to be really difficult as you need to balance a lot of elements). Then expand to include more elements in your composition.

Learn the light Learn what you can about the light and the different "kinds" of light. Cenital vs lateral vs back light. Strong vs soft lights and how the different lighting affects the final result. Your eyes are capable of capturing an incredible amount of information but the camera sensor isn't. A frontal light, for example, will tend to make the picture look flat which in most cases is not what you want. Understanding the light is, in my point of view, one of the most complex topics, and one that is really important and absolutely necessary in the long term but not the most important to learn first. Not because it is not important but because if you take enough shots you'll get every kind of lighting condition and you'll learn from it anyway.