This is how I've thought of it as well, why I've been hesitant to do much more so far, and why I'm polling a forum with lots of different maintainers rather than a single person at a single project already.

Because of my skills, I'm not going to stumble onto something by chance where I'm contributing upstream to scratch my own itch and then sticking around. I'm expecting I would need to spend time to find a project that seems like a good fit both ways, and become an active user intentionally where without my side agenda I'd be better off using a larger OSS project or a paid service.

I'm cool with putting that time in to help something grow and to help kindred spirits out. I don't want to put in that time just to be a source of annoyance or frustration to someone who's already done me and the world a solid by putting something cool out into the world.

Documentation is where it seemed to me like the best first step, and what people are saying here as well. As a followup, what's the general consensus on the least bothersome approach? Editing/prettifying existing documentation; appending to existing documentation (adding diagrams or examples); or creating "newbie docs" (how do I install this, how do I compile this on Windows, or aggregating a central FAQ from closed issues); or perhaps something else?