I think it is good to use your goals as a general motivation for going approximately in some direction, but the opposite extreme of obsessing whether every single detail you learn contributes to the goal is premature optimization.
It reminds me of companies where, before you are allowed to spend 1 hour doing something, the entire team first needs to spend 10 hours in various meetings to determine whether that 1 hour would be spent optimally. I would rather spend all that time doing things, even if some of them turn out to be ultimately useless.
Sometimes it’s not even obvious in advance which knowledge will turn out to be useful.
I think it is good to use your goals as a general motivation for going approximately in some direction, but the opposite extreme of obsessing whether every single detail you learn contributes to the goal is premature optimization.
It reminds me of companies where, before you are allowed to spend 1 hour doing something, the entire team first needs to spend 10 hours in various meetings to determine whether that 1 hour would be spent optimally. I would rather spend all that time doing things, even if some of them turn out to be ultimately useless.
Sometimes it’s not even obvious in advance which knowledge will turn out to be useful.