The most optimal way from a scientific perspective is to start from the simplest components and work your way outwards. It's what literally all of the science on the subject says to do. That would mean starting with the most basic tactics, mastering them fully and solidly, the most basic positional ideas, the most basic concepts, and having a rock solid foundation on them and expanding on them gradually. I think Applying Logic in Chess by Kislik touched on this concept. I think Axel Smith and Aagaard are on board with this idea too, although I don't know if they explicitly teach it. Dvoretsky has discussed the idea of this, but didn't go into detail. I hope that helps.

As a non-chess-player, you might be shocked by a few things that we players take for granted about chess strategies.

Chess concepts or ideas, anyway the kind professionals might learn, nearly always must be applied as if through a  cloud of noise or electric static. If I showed you games in which an idea bears fruit, you would probably not even be able to see the idea operating because it would be executed only intermittently, while constantly postponed or interrupted by many events--exchanges, tactics, necessary rearrangements  of the pieces, etc. Then the idea might normally be abandoned in a state of partial completion, for example if an opportunity for an attack on the king arose out of the opponent's efforts to avoid the idea's impact. This would be entirely normal, and you can even see such obscured examples used in textbooks as if they were clear!

Furthermore, you cannot simply decide to practice an idea and then do so relentlessly.  The opponent can nearly always prevent it, and will often do so essentially at random--at the cost of allowing you to pursue some other idea. Therefore the only way to learn the application of ideas is with large numbers of games, so that the ideas eventually turn up.

Even when they do appear and are executed, strategic ideas still tend to be statistical affairs--like forcing your opponent to drive without a seat belt, or drive through a somewhat congested area. That is, even if you implement your idea cleanly, there's no guarantee the idea will work; rather, statistically things are probably going to favor you (as when a soccer team's attackers outnumber the defenders around a goal). Once again, only long practice makes the learning stick. Maybe this will help you understand why.

In short, compared to the popular idea of it, chess--is a mess.

The question makes perfect sense.

My answer is that there is no shortcut:

1) Play lots of games (preferably slow ones)
2) Analyse these games (by yourself)

Over time, you will find certain concepts becoming second nature by following this process.