Also, did you end up reading most of the text?
I'm a bit surprised that your techinque is more efficient than reading the chapter and then doing the exercises, because most of the chapter's content is on your short term memory and you know exactly where to find the information if you need to review a concept to solve the exercise.
Sequential reading may be more efficient, but it's infinitely less effective if you never pick up the book to read the next chapter.
It's a workaround for the 'I started this useful, interesting book, read 50% of it, then never touched it again, for no good reason' bug. You solve the problem by nerd-sniping yourself with an exercise.
If you don't experience this bug perhaps it's not good advice for you.
My 'technique', if I want to read a particular book, is to carry it, and no other book, in my backpack. I'll inevitably read it in my down times.
Aluffi's book also helpfully tells you which exercises require solving previous exercises.
A lot of books from my school had exercises you could not solve if your only knowledge about the subject was the previous chapter(s). So for those who could be bothered (most efficient technique is not doing reading or exercises at all but somehow getting a good grade) there were times one would come up with an insight or read further ahead / another reference and discover a new connection. Either way made for deeper learning.
Another benefit of this is that you can see what information you've actually learned/internalized, versus what was just staying on the surface of your memory/mind when you last took a related course.