For new people (or returnees) settling in here, this is a piece of advice I haven't seen mentioned yet. Go to Settings and choose "Advanced Web Interface." That means Mastodon will pretty much look like Tweetdeck on your desktop. Much easier to manage lists and replies, and easier to follow people from that set up.
@AmandaWeaver I actually found that the advanced web interface was more cumbersome. I truly like the simple one.
@ablackcatstail Whatever works for you! I was addicted to tweetdeck, so this made the transition easier for me.