>Have a nice looking mesh >Becomes a fucking mess 5 min

Learn to use creases. Learn to use smoothing groups. Learn to use your renderer to smooth your edges instead of using geometry. Stop posting pictures of that stupid fucking frog.

>>575938
As a total beginner, I have the opposite problem, I tend to model stuff with way more edges than I need, and then throw away like half the edge loops. I really need to get better a predicting where to place lines ahead of time.

>>575942
>>I tend to model stuff with way more edges than I need, and then throw away like half the edge loops.

Ah... this is pretty much what any pro does when he's up against the clock!

But seriously - you need to get good at arithmetic. I'm serious - learning how to multiply and divide numbers in your head to end up a power-two numbers very quickly is an underrated skill, and it will aid you in deciding how many initial subdivisions to give to a surface or how many sides to put on a cylinder etc.
(If in doubt, go with 8 sides on a cylinder btw - it's easy to cut the cap down into four quads).