In every class, try to score as high as possible on the first assignment/exam. Since less material is covered at that point, less effort is required per unit of results.

Then later in the semester, you're free to put your effort where it's most needed, instead of needing to scramble across all your classes because you need good results on the final assignments just to pass.

Also, in subjects with group work, it lets you survive a bad group, rather than failing your course because you get stuck with some maladjusted dingus. Moreover, you can use your high grades on the first assignment to leverage your way into a good group. This kind of group-work metagaming is especially important in engineering subjects, and doubly so again if the course is bell-curved.

Finally, try to do one creative thing per year and put it in a public forum, especially on a platform you control (e.g. a blog). Even small things are OK. Literally having any body of work outside of class assignments will let you crush 90% of your peers when applying to grad school, a job, a scholarship, or really just about anything with a halfway sane selection process. It's also fun (doing creative things, not crushing your peers).