Tip 1:  Don’t do magick in your home.  I’ll start with my first words of warning:  be wary of what kind of magick you do in your own home.  Spirits/demons/ghosts/energies of all kinds/things that go bump in the night are all attracted to energy and magick is big-time energy.  Just because you cast a circle and close it and all of the other things that you’ve learned to do, it’s inevitable that your home will become well known as an energy source.  If at all possible, do your magick somewhere else whether that’s in a field, your backyard, a park, or even just your garage.

I learned this through two of my own residences becoming energetic feeding grounds.  As I’m sure that you know if you’ve read much of what I’ve written, I know the basic protections and fail-safes that circulate magickal circles.  I have kicked my fair share of not-so-nice things out of my apartment, but I promise, you don’t want to deal with the trouble every night when you really would rather be getting some sleep before work or a final or even just to watch a good movie with a particular someone.  The bad thing about it is that no matter how many spirits you banish from your home, every time you do it you’re releasing more energy and you’re only making it worse.  I don’t know a fix for this, and the only way that I eventually rid myself and my family of this trouble was to move.  That’s why I would suggest that you didn’t start the cycle.  If you must do magick in your home, remember to cleanse well afterwards so that the energy doesn’t build up.  It’s not hard to clean it up quickly before your home becomes an energetic hot spot, but it’s very difficult to clean it up once it’s known in darker circles.

Tip 2: Leave the innocents out of it! The things that go bump in the night are attracted to those of us that can deal with them.  They’re attracted to the energy that we put out when we practice, when we worship, and when we simply move about. 
On the other hand, they can affect people that they aren’t drawn to, so when you are doing magick even remotely close to other people, please don’t just make the spirits leave you.  The entities were drawn to you, and therefore they are your responsibility. 
Don’t cause harm simply through neglect.

This one really hit me hard when I realized what had happened.  I was dealing with a rather difficult entity one night and it was causing a lot of pain to my wife, so I did the first thing that came to me – I pushed it away.  Well it went up…to my upstairs neighbor’s apartment.  I didn’t think too much of it for a while.  I figured that it would be back like most of them ended up doing, but it never really came back.  A few days to a few weeks later, the family that lived upstairs and to my knowledge had never really had any real problems split up.  The dad left and I never saw him again.  They had had a serious fight that we heard downstairs after never hearing anything from them in a year, not even their 2 year old crying.  This family had done nothing to draw the entity to them, had no way of knowing that it was an entity causing pain and turmoil, and had no way of dealing with it.  Don’t be the cause of someone else’s pain, even unintentionally.  Trust me, it really sucks.

Tip 3: Don’t forget the basics. The basics are there for a reason.  We all learn to cast a circle.  We all learn the basic protections.  We all learn the basic idea that yes there are things out there that can hurt us and yes we should make sure that they don’t come near us.  Remember these all the time. 

Especially when you’re doing something new.