This book teaches the heart of drafting. Not so much "here's how you plop shit down in a parametric modeler," but more along the lines [heh] of pen-on-paper, the theory behind why things are the way they are in drawings, etc.
With that, parametric modelers, which can do their own drawings (with user guidance), have pretty much made manual pen-on-paper drafters as redundant as the 30+ year manual machinists due to CNC.
Book (fifth edition) is here: libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=17EBA4DBA0B1B85C57842B5339888620
While is right in a simplistic sense (that parametric modeling is pretty much 3D modeling), what's really important is that you learn some things about how models are constructed in parametric modelers. Design intent must be taken into consideration at all times, and everything done must be done with an eye to how changes can be made at the top of your history tree such that they'll propagate with little/no error downstream on the history tree. There's a strategy where you breaks up the major construction elements of your model into 'phases,' like the sketch phase, the extrude/revolve phase, and feature (chamfer, fillet, hole, etc) phase.
There are four popular modeling strategies too. You can start small at the sketch and work outward up to a solid body (additive), you can take a primitive and cut away until the final body is achieved (subtractive), etc.
But yes, back to your question: modeling random shit around the house is a good way to get acquainted with the tools.
(Also, if/when you decide to get to involute gears, remember that while the "extend-tangent, place point" method is popularly shown on YouTube, I strongly recommend you use an equation in a law curve with really tight tolerances to make your first involute profile, which you will then mirror, then pattern. I highly strongly suggest you get very well acquainted with expressions and the mathematics of it. While you can 'eyeball' almost everything in 3DS Max and it's 'good enough,' you can try to do that in NX but doing so in place of learning a little bit of math will eventually catch up with you.
You shouldn't need higher than college calc to cover over 90% of the expressions you will input into NX. The two most important subjects in math which will carry over to parametric modelers like NX are high school Algebra and Trigonometric Geometry. Especially the trig, drill that shit!
Also, I stronkly recommend NX. While it has a slightly steeper learning curve, it is (IMO) the most powerful package on the market. It starts off at well over 2x the cost of SolidWorks, and that's without modules. Every module which comes in the installer for NX 11, if all installed and licensed (floating), represents an install worth at least a couple brand new Mercedes ($80,000+ down, $10,000+/yr maint.). It's only other spiritual competitor is CATIA, which still looks like it's in the late 90s in interface design (though it is just as powerful). NX is used in ærospace as well as vehicle manufacturing (including the bodies). With GM, for example, NX must be used up-and-down the supply chain.
(Side-note: I like using NX more than Illustrator or AutoCAD for vector art. Constraints and dimensions are beautiful tools missing in most vector art programs. Radiance pic related was entirely made in NX, then exported to Illustrator to thicken the lines in.)