I mostly use Hakko 936 compatible iron core tips, sometimes the generic versions of them, and turn down my temp controlled station to its minimum setting if I won't be soldering anything more within the next dozen seconds or so.
Granted it has a reasonably good temperature recovery time compared to my older irons, if it didn't then I might make the time interval a few minutes instead.
If I won't be soldering within the next 5 minutes or so I turn it off. Every now and then I wipe it against a wet paper towel to clean it, with the low amount of water contact giving it a lesser thermal shock. A cleaning sponger will also have a lesser thermal shock if it's not completely saturated with water and you wipe quickly, or use the copper/brass brillo pad type cleaner.
If you are using cheap low quality tips then what you are doing may extend their lives a bit, but if you are doing that you might want to look at a soldering station that takes better tips.
Whether you are obsessing about it requires a test. With your setup, whatever it might be, don't go to those lengths and see how long the tip lasts, then asses the extra effort and distraction of doing it, against the cost of a new tip.
How fast the tip gets eaten up depends a lot on how active your flux (separate or in the solder) is. Sometimes I work with very old tarnished parts and even use plumber's zinc chloride flux and that eats up tips fast, so I do wipe that off right away. Regular low activity rosin flux, not so much.
