Getting started with Portainer felt like unlocking a whole new level of control over my Docker containers, but it also came with its fair share of growing pains. As easy as it is to navigate the web UI, I quickly learned that skipping the documentation and diving in headfirst led to some avoidable mistakes. These early missteps didn’t break my setup, but they did cause unnecessary confusion and wasted time. Here’s what I did wrong during that first week and what I’d do differently now.