I am VERY green in this whole automation world, but it seems like every day I am seeing a new product that has rules or routines that i can use to automate things. I am trying to take it slow when it actually comes to writing my rules. But there is a little bit of analysis paralysis when it comes to should I be writing rules in the Hubitat Rule Manager? Should I instead be working more through ifttt? or Tasker on my android? or even routines on my google home? Does it depend on what type of rule they are? Or is it personal preference? I am not looking for a particular answer, but would love to find more reading material to figure out what is happening.
If you loose your internet connection, or there is ‘cloud’ problem, then you may loose ifttt and/or Tasker/Google
As a general rule, it is always better (in my opinion) to do as much ‘locally’ as possible.
That’s one of the big selling points for Hubitat, it can run all it’s rules etc locally without an internet connection.
Andy
Personally I try to keep things simple by doing as much automating as possible using Hubitat. As previously mentioned it keeps control local. To get started, I would look through some Hubitat documentation at Home - Hubitat Documentation.
On this site you can search for 'Rule Machine' and read more about Hubitat-based automations. Depending on what devices you've got connected, I'd try building some simple rules first. Examples are turning on/off outdoor lights at or near sunrise/sunset, turning on/off lights based on motion, and turning on/off lights when a closet door opens. Although many of these could be automated using a pre-built Hubitat lighting app, I find doing so in Rule Machine is a good way to learn. To keep any family members happy, make sure to start with rules that are intuitive to non-tech people. My spouse happens to really like automated closet lighting.
I'll second (third? fourth?) the advice above: I like to do as much in Hubitat as possible. This is for a few reasons. First, it's among the most powerful options (Google Home/Alexa routines are more limited--but occasionally necessary if you want something like an Alexa voice announcement using only officially supported methods). Second, almost everything runs locally, whereas most other systems are cloud-dependent. This makes things faster and generally more reliable. Third, most of my devices are already on Hubitat--keeping all of my automations there is just more convenient, plus it limits points of failure between different systems (also often cloud-related).
I see you mentioned both "Rule Machine" and "VERY green" in the same paragraph, so I'll caution you: don't start there. 
Hubitat has a variety of built-in apps, which are basically automation templates you can plug devices and other parameters into to build automations you want. For example, Motion Lighting can turn lights on/off based on motion sensors and has a bunch of other options for customizations. Notifier can alert you when specific things happen (e.g., temperature sensor becomes too hot/cold, a presence sensor arrives, a contact sensor opens, or nearly anything). Thermostat Scheduler can...do exactly what it sounds like. Rule Machine is also a built-in app, but it's best to think of it as something that is there to help when the stock apps don't do what you want--it would make a very tough starting point, at least if you aren't used to Hubitat's device and app model and the event-drivenness underlying the platform.
