I find that a lot of the time spent wandering is finding the "big wins", actions, situations communities etc that give a huge boost to your skills or perspective.<p>The two I can name off hand are installing Linux and finding this site. One of the things I'm looking for is the next big win. I still haven't found a way to ask people about them or where they might be.<p>I'm fairly sure that if if I knew where they all were in advance I could hit "master" without putting ten years into it.
There's a great book on software apprenticeship that I recommend: Apprenticeship Patterns <a href="http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596518387.do" rel="nofollow">http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596518387.do</a><p>It goes into great detail about why and how to be an apprentice and the authors seem really knowledgeable.