embrace Ship-show-ask as workflow

Master with codebases

Remove all the noisy notifications and configure the external repos as you need. Only releases ? Only bug fixes ? Ignore at all ?

Dominate git stash + origin + branches + worktree to switch and handle as much as possible with git / stash / worktrees

git diff --color-words origin/dev

if not possible compare with git, use tools to compare files between codebases with $diff and also $shasum

the cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing -Seth Godin

About your learning, Think in long term: Invest time to follow the best practices. Formalize your learning with the best practices. If you think is not necessary at that time, I can assure you that what you are doing will be repeated in one way or another, so, be ready for that. Why ? So, you do not have time to do things in the best way, but you can do it two o more time?
Think global, even the development is for a short time period or the scope is limited: Once you think globally, think in count all the resources ( even not are available at that moment ) and make a plan that considerate all the resources . You will find the time development reduces a lot of time for that.
Ensure that all the efforts that are developed going to be useful: Tests the components / functs as the final user immediately it is finished.