Brandon,
Two habits that I personally had to break out of me from a “mom and pop”
school was the phraseology and being behind the airplane. As you progress through ATP, you’ll be training like the airlines, phraseology and staying ahead of the airplane is important.
One thing that I stress to fellow students that come to me for advice from my training center is always be thinking “what can I be doing for the next phase of flight” when the plane is all trimmed out and you’re cruising along. You’ll find quickly that in the instrument phase of training if you fall behind the airplane, phases of flight can have a domino effect and the stress piles on. Being familiar with your checklists can assist you with staying ahead.
There have been some recent debates on the forum for proper phraseology and how to read back certain things, Chris (Pilot Mentor) recommended a document that you as a pilot can study and have an idea of what the FAA is looking for you to read back in a manner of order and context. I believe it was titled “All Clear”; check this thread for more information, it’s a recent one too: [Talking with ATC - #7 by Chris](Talking With ATC)
Hope this kind of helps from my perspective, I really studied the flow of checklist and where things were located in the flight deck which really helped my progress and success.
Brady