How do I manage local storage on my iPad?

Welcome to the Apple Community.

You can see what your iPad storage is used for and delete any unwanted content at settings > General > Usage. I'm not sure that is all that complicated.

I don't know about smarter, but being dead is quite a handicap. We aren't Apple people, we are just users like yourself. We just volunteer to give a little time to help other Apple users with the odd issue. 🙂