In no particular order:
Get a leather shaft burnisher and burnish your shaft after every playing session.
Get a hard case to keep the cues in. Joint protectors are nice, also.
Wash your hands before playing.
Don't hold your cue straight up and down when chalking. It causes chalk residue to fall onto your shaft.
Use tan chalk and your shafts will stay new looking longer.
Don't use abrasives on your cue. If you must, nothing coarser than 1200 grit. Green pads (Scotch Brite, etc.) are bad for cue shafts.
Don't use talc on your hands when playing.
Don't drill the chalk.
The Ultimate Tip Tool is great. It is a nickel radius shaper, a dime radius shaper, and a knurling tool all rolled into one. It looks like it would make a pretty good bottle opener, too. Be warned, the package advertises other uses for which the Ultimate Tip Tool is not well suited. Attempting to utilize such features has been known to cause shaft and/or ferrule damage.
Learn to avoid dinging your shaft.
Learn to repair shaft dings, and keep your shaft ding free.
Wash hands often while playing, whenever possible.
Clean chalk off tip after play, before putting cue in case.
Good Rolls,
Rasta