The journey starts by running the following command:
$ vimutor
At the end of vimtutor there is a strong hint that there is a lot more to learn. If you are still interested at this point, then run the following command in a Vim session to access the user manual:
:help user-manual
Now, a few recommendations…
Yes, you _need_ to read a lot and experiment a lot if you ever hope to become proficient with Vim. Just like with any "pro" app. It takes time and practice to become a pro at anything. That's life. Luckily, no one is expecting you to be a "pro" vimmer, now or ever, so you can do the learning at your leisure and even drop out if you have to. It's just a weird text editor after all and you still have VSCode.
Each chapter of the user manual builds up on the previous ones so you actually get a very gentle and progression curve. The wording is also very approachable so you don't have to be a CS major to understand it.
Don't go in with the project of replacing your current editor. This would be an absolute waste of time as it would give you false expectations AND a strong incentive to cut corners. Just… look at it. Poke at it. See if you like it and, eventually, dive in. Maybe you will end up replacing VSCode with it. Maybe not. Who cares?
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As a programer, I have been using Vim as main text editor since 2010. I love it and I'm pretty good at it, active in the community and all, but I also use other editors and IDEs when doing so makes more sense and I'm not here to evangelize the masses. Vim is old and weird and powerful but a) that power comes at a (rather low, IMO) price and b) it won't solve all your problems so don't invest too much, emotionally, into that learning.
Thanks for your other tips as well. I'll try and approach it that way, just doing it little by little, I don't always need VSCode and for simple edits its already way better than nano, although tbf I didn't take the time to learn all of nanos functionality.
It probably is best to take it slow and not cut corners. Play some vimgolf and take it slow, try to get the base stuff like regex search and replace down. Learning regex well can be applied to other things as well, so it is worth it to practice it in the context of vim.