I'm similar. This from your top link stood out to me: "It’s a little like building with lego bricks or something – spaced repetition helps ensure all the tiny

I'm similar. This from your top link stood out to me: "It’s a little like building with lego bricks or something – spaced repetition helps ensure all the tiny pieces are in the right place, so that the big castle can happen without structural integrity issues." The book Make it Stick (by Henry L. Roediger III) had a similar idea they called 'Structure Building'. Very similar to what you described, more experienced and effective learners were creating mental schemas of how the little, but crucial parts of a subject fit together, and successfully cut through the noise. Structure Building was associated with interleaved practice (shuffling of problem types) and spaced retrieval practice.