Linux

I use virtual machines and live usbs to try out distros when I'm thinking of a change. That gives you a chance to get a feel for the design philosophy of a distro and whether it works for you.

As others have said, back up is really important. You can back up a lot of settings and preferences and bring them to a new distro. They're stored in your home directory in folders like .config and .local.

I keep a back up of my /home folder. I'm also a KDE main so use Konsave to specifically back up my KDE theme and settings.

If you are at the point of moving then that's the time to make backups ready to restore. Also get a list together of the apps you want to keep so you can get set up quickly in a new distro.

Also another habit to get in to is backing up any major config changes into your Home folder for later reference. Even if you don't use the exact same file it can be useful to have somewhere that reminds you what you tweaked or did to get the system how you wanted it. For example I keep copies of my fstab file (just for reference!), and config files for programs I put in /opt amongst other tweaks I've made.

I also save Web pages which have specific tips I used in Linux configs - really helpful if you ever need to go back and do something again. I write txt files on some complex or niche things to remind me exactly what I did as you're unlikely to remember things you've only done once. These are two habits it's worth getting into - saves so much time hunting for how to do things when you need to, even if you're not moving distros.

All these things together make switching distros much easier should you want to do it.