I used to be exactly like that. As a consequence I never really picked up any in-depth knowledge through school because hitting the basics was usually enough t

I used to be exactly like that. As a consequence I never really picked up any in-depth knowledge through school because hitting the basics was usually enough to "get the grade" and there was precious little "reward" (of whatever form) for pushing it further. When I was 18 a tutor - who I didn't really know well - said to me in passing, and seemingly pretty randomly, "Your problem is that you want to run before you can walk with everything." I had an epiphany over that and slowed down my "gets" for small, insignificant objectives and spent the time trying to really understand things. From that point on I actually learned how to program properly rather than just doing enough to get by, for example. As I've gotten older I've learned that my chasing the "gets" was a self-imposed restriction because there was always a small but sufficient reward for the accumulating of praise, etc. I've taught myself to very stringently prioritise (recent book suggestion: Procrastinate on Purpose) and categorise the things I "have to" do and instead of doing a hundred things that don't really matter (but they were easy and I get a "thanks") I work out which things I "have to" do will actually add value and make a difference, even if achieving them will take much more effort. As my career has developed I've moved into being a specialist and now find myself coming back out into being a generalist but the "real" grounding in my skills sets me apart from "career generalists" and "credential whores" that my industry is plagued with nowadays. EDIT: thinking about it, this "get" behaviour started when I was in junior school. I used to read encyclopaedias for facts and tell people. My parents used to praise me for what I knew, and my friends jokingly called me an "information magnet". I liked my cursory knowledge of "everything" and I guess I became addicted to it.