[bhldev]

This is a way. But you still focused on craft. You just took much longer to do it and in smaller chunks. Also you probably underestimate your own skill or have some perfect combination of skills to makeup for lack of focus.

It's possible that for most people your way wouldn't work and the alternative way (putting in a lot of time) works better. Also at the start you could not have put in only 4 hours. You put in hundreds if not thousands of hours and only in maintenance mode do you go down to nothing. There's probably time you aren't counting either. All your life led up to that moment and all that.

So I think you and people like you are the exception and saying what the OP says is much more realistic and widely applicable. It's simply not possible to get where you want to go without putting in time (talent luck market and perseeverence could lower time to near zero but that's the exception).