Any survival mode tips for Minecraft?

First day I go for about 30 plus wood and look for a rock cliff with coal exposed. I dig in there (wooden pickax) and hollow out a room, block the door to keep mobs from entering, build a stove, make torches. Upgrade to rock pickax. If I can't find coal I smelt down wood into charcoal for torches. Then I dig stairs down to look for iron. Upgrade to iron pickax. Level 16 and below might also get you diamonds and gold (press F-3 to see level). Iron can make a better pickax, shovel, sword and armor as well as buckets for carrying water and lava. With armor vest and helmet (at least) and a metal sword you can venture out to do battle with the mobs. I also keep my eyes open for sheep for the wool so I can make a bed and establish my spawn point different from the original spawn ESPECIALLY if I traveled a long way to find my base location. When I finally want to explore a large area that keeps me gone for days I take an extra bed. The minute the sun goes down I put the bed down anywhere and go to sleep before the mobs come out. I awaken the next day unharmed by the mobs. Another tactic if you don't have a bed is to use soil blocks to pile straight up into the sky about 15 blocks and the skeletons can't shoot you. When you come down with your shovel the next morning, you will have some mobs to kill from the night before. Spiders do not attack you during he day unless you hit them first.
I usually get well established before building a proper house. I like one with a defensible wall with kill holes (maybe). When you sleep all night in a bed there are fewer mobs spawning in your area, so the wall is not necessary. If you don't have sheep for wool to make a bed, kill spiders for their spider webs or explore a mine and take the spider webs to make wool. I have played on various adventure maps where sheep were rare and playing without a bed is more difficult. I always play survival mode unless I want to try out a new deign for a building, trap, etc. And then I will try it out in creative, but I on't spend much time there.

You can just turn the difficulty level to zero to get rid of all the monsters including the mobs. Then, you can go looking for all the ore in the Mincraft world. For the houses you can either build a cabin on a plain stretch of land or you can mine a hole in the side of a mountain and put door to cover the hole and expand your mountain side house gradually. To find rare ores dig all the way to bedrock and do a strip search- that is to dig ten squares high all the way to one side… You can Google more about strip searching to find out the correct ways to do it. And remember to use the correct pick axe for the ores. Iron can mine anything!