Rather than trying to go through one end of a tutorial or reference to the other (don't know if that's you), find a site or two of vim tips, and let them randomly trigger your mind. I think it's more interesting than going through anything beyond page/chapter 1 of a reference.
Coupled with that, whatever you find yourself doing in vim, take some time to understand what it is and the alternatives. Becoming familiar with :help's table of contents, rather than the contents of every chapter, is probably helpful here.
Similarly, when you do something accidentally, try to understand what happened. Sometimes you'll discover a feature. q: for example is discovered by accident by many people, including me.
Bram Moolenaar's seven habits has great insights about this subject: http://www.moolenaar.net/habits.html