To work on character dialing/design skills, I set out on a plan to do one 30-minute exercise per day for 100 days: start with a base Genesis 8.1 Female wireframe, dial a character, put the character into a simple setting (HDRI background would meet the test, but try for more), and start a render (I didn't put the render time into the 30 minutes for pretty obvious reasons). I managed to do 62 in 100 days. This one was #46, which was when I really felt like I was getting the hang of accelerating my workflow.