First in your family to do it? Then you’re the one writing the manual.

There is nobody at home who can tell you how the application works, what a deadline really means, or what to do when the form goes wrong. That is a genuine extra cost and it is not a sign you are behind. It also means the notes you make become the map for the cousin or sibling who tries in four years, and right now that map does not exist.

Keep the notes as you go, roughly, in one place. Then find one person outside your family who has already done it and ask them the specific questions, because that is the shortcut nobody handed you.