Repairing Paint

[St Thicket]

As you might have discovered by now, I'm not especially handy when it comes to cars. I Like to learn, but I don't know anyone that have more experience than me, so you guys are my only source of inspiration.

Anyway, both my cars are getting to an age where the wearing an tearing has gotten to the paint, and especially on the bonnet. There is a lot of gravel marks (or whatever you natives call it) on the bonnet and a few on the front doors.

My first thought is that I need some touch up paint... but how should I proceed with the repair? I'm especially worried about the places where there is a little rust. Should the rust be removed first, and how should I do it? Sand paper or rust remover solvent?

When the touch up paint has been applied, should I polish the car to even out the paint or should I use rubbing polish? Or should I polish before I do the paint?

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Another thing that I'm curious about is the dashboard in my Corolla (yeah, I know... wrong forum, but I prefer to ask you guys). Somehow it reflects in the windscreen when it's sunny outside. This is really disturbing me, and makes it hard to see.

I've thought about maybe using a dashboard polish so that the sun doesn't reflect as much, but there's two types; one clear and one matt... which would reflect the sun differently. My first thought is that the clear one will reflect most of the sunlight away from the dashboard, but that would cause the sunlight to reflect back to the windscreen causing reflections? Nah, I don't really know what to do here... which should I use? Or are there other ways of dealing with this?

I would really appreciate any advice about these things!