If you want to go it alone, I think you're going to have to give up on the idea that there is a "right" set of resources or an optimal path through the curricul

If you want to go it alone, I think you're going to have to give up on the idea that there is a "right" set of resources or an optimal path through the curriculum. I would spend a bounded bit of time (maybe just 10 minutes) every day focusing on the meta question of "how can I make progress given the absolutely massive set of choices I have to make?" and relatedly "am I actually making progress?" Then I'd just make an arbitrary choice. E.g. pick a topic that interests you, find the top two or three textbooks on the topic, choose one at random and start reading it. Then keep going back to the meta question. Are you making progress? If not, try another path. If yes, keep going, but remember to ask yourself the meta question tomorrow. If you do this, you'll get better over time at carving out your own way. re: going through multiple university books on the same topic. I find it is useful to skim several university books on the same topic. They often have different perspectives, and this is useful for developing intuition. But after doing this I'd just do the exercises from the one I liked the best.