If I had one piece of advice it would be: Descend the rabbit holes!
Rabbit Hole Syndrome is a symptom of having a curious, persistent, independent mind. If there were a drug that cured Rabbit Hole Syndrome, and everyone just worked on Shipping Their Products and Not Asking Questions, there'd be no one left to make the interesting discoveries that make the world better in the long run.
There are very famous quotes from Richard Hamming (see "You and Your Research") and Richard Feynman (see "Surely You're Joking!") about the importance of working on problems that seem trivial at first. Not only do they help you enjoy problem-solving for its own sake, but if you work on enough silly problems, then eventually the odds are good that you'll stumble upon something that other people will later think is really important. Incidentally if you read Thomas Kuhn you'll find that this tends to be how scientific revolutions happen: someone is bothered by some tiny little thing that doesn't quite make sense according to the prevailing theory, starts digging at the little cracks, and finally the whole system comes crashing down.
The major benefit of going down rabbit holes is that is opens yourself to serendipity: sometimes you'll turn out to be right about something for the wrong reason, or discover something that you later realize contains a solution to a seemingly unrelated problem. The more rabbit holes you've gone down, the more they start to connect.
In addition, frivolous research helps you develop a very "bottom-up" view of the world. If you know the details cold, then you are better able to see through high-level BS ("conventional wisdom") and evaluate things on their own terms. You'll find that regardless of what's optimal, most things are done a certain way only because they've always been done that way, and that regardless of what's true, most people believe things only because other people believe them.
Of course there are costs to all this -- in particular, "schleppers" will resent you for being irresponsible, and most people will think you're crazy if you ever explain what stupid little you've been working on lately. Which is why Rabbit Holers should try to should avoid actual responsibilities to the greatest possible extent and absolutely not care about what most people think about their work.
Anyway, to sum up, if you're lucky enough to be in a position to descend rabbit holes without impoverishing your family or bankrupting your company, I say go for it. It strengthens your most valuable asset (your mind), and who knows, maybe one day you'll discover something you can teach the rest of us.
I second this. The gift you have is the drive and passion to learn by your self and explore. Let it go free and you'll become an expert. Soon or later you'll be able to turn this knowledge to profit for you and the collectivity.
Our education system is broken in that we don't recognize and develop the skill you have. People are somehow forced to do things they don't feel like being doing.
My impression is that it's ADD. But It's sad ADD is called a disorder, because these people have the remarkable ability to be extremely efficient and concentrated in what they like and are interested into, well above the average. These people could be experts and genius in their field, provided they could develop their skill.
I agree with your advice to "Descend the rabbit holes!" but feel it needs a little more context. The real question here is not 'should I descend rabbit holes?' but rather how often or when.
If you are building something, you inevitably spend some part of your time writing code that is familiar and boring (let's call this WORK), and part of your time exploring unfamiliar code and concepts (RABBIT HOLES).
Going down rabbit holes is not work, it is a form of learning - in fact, in the world of software development it is the best form of learning because you have a highly relevant problem and supreme motivation to solve it.
At the end of the day, however, going down a rabbit hole is no different than reading a book, or articles on HN. It is not actually work, and fooling yourself otherwise leads to the blurring of what is work and what is learning.
You should always be learning, as much as you can. But you must be honest with yourself, there is probably more work to be done, and you can't possibly get on with it until you pull yourself out of the rabbit hole.
Yet the conflict between "It's the trip, not the destination" and the fact that your salary arrives at the end of the month can cause much grief when not balanced in the mid term.
Rabbit Hole Syndrome is a symptom of having a curious, persistent, independent mind. If there were a drug that cured Rabbit Hole Syndrome, and everyone just worked on Shipping Their Products and Not Asking Questions, there'd be no one left to make the interesting discoveries that make the world better in the long run.
There are very famous quotes from Richard Hamming (see "You and Your Research") and Richard Feynman (see "Surely You're Joking!") about the importance of working on problems that seem trivial at first. Not only do they help you enjoy problem-solving for its own sake, but if you work on enough silly problems, then eventually the odds are good that you'll stumble upon something that other people will later think is really important. Incidentally if you read Thomas Kuhn you'll find that this tends to be how scientific revolutions happen: someone is bothered by some tiny little thing that doesn't quite make sense according to the prevailing theory, starts digging at the little cracks, and finally the whole system comes crashing down.
The major benefit of going down rabbit holes is that is opens yourself to serendipity: sometimes you'll turn out to be right about something for the wrong reason, or discover something that you later realize contains a solution to a seemingly unrelated problem. The more rabbit holes you've gone down, the more they start to connect.
In addition, frivolous research helps you develop a very "bottom-up" view of the world. If you know the details cold, then you are better able to see through high-level BS ("conventional wisdom") and evaluate things on their own terms. You'll find that regardless of what's optimal, most things are done a certain way only because they've always been done that way, and that regardless of what's true, most people believe things only because other people believe them.
Of course there are costs to all this -- in particular, "schleppers" will resent you for being irresponsible, and most people will think you're crazy if you ever explain what stupid little you've been working on lately. Which is why Rabbit Holers should try to should avoid actual responsibilities to the greatest possible extent and absolutely not care about what most people think about their work.
Anyway, to sum up, if you're lucky enough to be in a position to descend rabbit holes without impoverishing your family or bankrupting your company, I say go for it. It strengthens your most valuable asset (your mind), and who knows, maybe one day you'll discover something you can teach the rest of us.