It's also a good idea to know where your spawnpoint are, make a landmark as soon as possible (with a pillar of dirt or something else that seems out of place) so you can find your spawnpoint. You want to know this in order to oritent in the world. It's also a good idea to make your first home very near your spawnpoint, because when you die you'll be near safety and hopefully some of your saved resources.
While you are making your preparations for nightfall, keep an eye on the sun. When you first start a new world, it will be early morning. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, just like our sun. At midday it will be directly above you. Clouds always travel north. Work quickly – a Minecraft day is only about twenty minutes!
The essentials
Note: By default on most servers you cannot dig blocks in a 33x33 square around the spawn point However you approach your first night, you will need at least wood and ideally coal to have a fighting chance.
To collect resources, you aim at the block representing the resource and press and hold the left mouse button. This will instruct your avatar to punch the block repeatedly. Cracks will gradually appear in the block. Keep holding the left mouse button until the block breaks and drops. You can collect the dropped resource by moving near its spinning representation. It will then appear in your inventory. It is a generally good idea, if you are building away from your spawn, to mark it and make an arrow pointing to your home in case of death.
Wood
Wood is obtained from tree trunks. Wood is the staple of everything that is crafting, and is required to access the larger crafting grid necessary for the crafting of tools. It is also possible to extract charcoal from wood, making wood the single most important and useful resource early on.
After collecting 5-10 wood blocks, you can craft your first item.
