After years of consideration, months of research, weeks of anticipation, and hours upon hours of my friend setting up my system I FINALLY have a gaming rig that is capable of running pretty much any game out right now. Obviously that includes Skyrim. I have made a few posts and watched many, many YouTube videos on modding the game and thanks to the friendly advice of many active members on this site I am going to try and take things slow at first. But I at least want to get started. And because of that I'd really like to know what I need to run first.

I have Nexus Mod Manager installed, as well as BOSS. I have Skyrim downloaded (with all the DLCs) on Steam. I've got WinRar and all other necessary tools to start my modding journey. But where should I start? I'm thinking about downloading Skyrim Script Extender first because this is the mod that is necessary for many of the other mods that I will want in the future. But my question is this; once I download it do I need to run my game through the SKSE file (after creating a desktop shortcut) or do you guys still run your game through Steam?

Thanks for the advice in advance and wish me luck. I'm sure I'll need it as problems are inevitable.

You have to run SKSE from the shortcut it gives you (or a shortcut to skse_loader.exe) in order for SKSE to be active. Launching it through Steam will make it inactive.

Start Steam and after Steam is loaded, then use the your SKSE_Loader.exe shortcut.