If you're a fan of medical dramas, you're familiar with the term See > Do > Teach.  If you've attended medical school, you're more familiar with it as see one, do one, teach one, and the potential issues with that, but that's another topic. 

See Do Teach is a rapid learning method that requires learners to get hands on quickly, then share the knowledge.  This philosophy is something I've unconsciously incorporated into my life.  I often find myself curious about something, then wander into the proverbial weeds learning more about it.

I force myself to focus by creating documentation on it. Yes, I do this outside of a work environment.  I developed material on LinkedIn that led to a speaking engagement, running four workshops, and that resulted in two more invited speaking engagements and a contract job offer. Not too shabby. 

It requires a curious nature and a willingness to analyze and share knowledge. I like taking time to develop "skill building" pieces, to help focus other learner's attentions, so the experience isn't so passive.  This was a huge boon at my last permanent job, when we had a dozen newly minted helpdesk agents who weren't all that conversant in using computers.  Going through training classes is one thing, but their practical experience in answering How-Tos were all but non-existent.  So to help them focus, I created "skill building projects" that required they perform tasks in the Microsoft Office products, focusing on common "How To" questions I'd experienced.  They'd have finished files to turn into the supervisor to show they were making sure they had done the work, which helped because the Go Live date kept being pushed back.

So if you're curious about something, start poking around, and play with it and try to work on ways to share that knowledge with others.