Question

I study in yeshiva, currently in my second year. I feel that my learning isn’t effective enough and that I’m not progressing as much as I’d like, and this shows up in two ways:
A. Recently I got a bit interested in the area of coaching in competitive sports or in learning, and a lot of the emphasis that experts in those fields place is on setting goals. Since I devote almost all my time to broad conceptual analysis, as the Rabbi recommends, for me that means half a day of in-depth analysis plus reviewing the lecture, an evening study session of slow broad coverage, and some more time for later authorities (Acharonim) and other things. In other words, I don’t know what clear goals I can set for myself in these areas. I’m not even close to finishing a tractate or anything like that, and that makes it harder for the learning to feel organized and hurts motivation, because there are no achievements.
B. I feel that a lot of the time in analytical study gets wasted. You can get stuck for hours on one medieval authority (Rishon) or a small discussion about some conceptual point; many times I don’t understand the wording of some medieval authority, and it takes up a huge part of the study session. I feel that I’m simply learning very slowly and am frustrated by the pace, and I feel that over time my progress in understanding the language of the medieval authorities is not all that great.
How does the Rabbi suggest overcoming this difficulty? And more generally, I’d be happy to hear whether the Rabbi has suggestions for improving the effectiveness of learning—not only on the level of what to learn, but also on the level of how to learn.