I come from a bit of an "efficiency is king" environment so you mostly come up with various ways to cut down on time marking out and reducing possible errors.
If you're doing a lot of laying out with a common measurement (For context, spacing out glazing bars in a window sash evenly) it is a huge time saver and error-reducer to cut a small piece of timber to the exact length required and use that as your "measurin' stick".
When laying out on multiple, identical parts like many standard-sized door stiles that has multiple mortices to mark it is handy to make what's called a Rod or Storyboard which again is a length of timber or sheet material with the marks required laid upon it so all you have to do is lay the Rod onto the part and transfer the marks from the Rod to the part and square the marks across. This can be a huge time saver over individually marking out each part but is only really worth doing for bigger batches of identical parts or something more complex.
When making joints, it is almost always better and more accurate to use the timber you are using as the measuring reference rather than taking an actual measurement and transferring it to the piece, for example, for a straight forward lap joint between two pieces of timber you would draw a square line across one piece of timber, lay the other piece on top of it and line it up with the square line and strike the other pencil line against the piece of timber as your reference.
A tape measure isn't the most accurate way to measure, or at least using it the conventional way with the hook on the end isn't and I wouldn't trust it enough to rely on it for important measurements. If I'm using a tape measure for accurately marked measurements I draw the tape out and place the 100mm line (or 1" if you're old school) where I need to measure from and then mark the measurement +100mm, so say if I'm wanting to mark 821mm on a piece of timber using this method I would have to mark it at 921mm on the tape to account for the 100mm at the front end.
You'd be amazed at what you can do with a compass, a pair of dividers or trammel points for all kinds of layout.