Spend some time on context. Reading papers in isolation maybe makes you appreciate the idea that it presents, but understanding how that idea came about and what alternative ideas it replaced or subsumed primes you for extending or applying it. For that it's perhaps more valuable to scan more background material loosely, rather than just adding today's references to your reading list. Also it's very helpful to pay attention to names and affiliations when doing this.
Another pitfall I've had with regular reading like "a paper a day/week" is not to discard papers fast enough. Often the abstract either oversells the results, or the details are simply too obvious to you to learn anything new from them. Learn to recognize "weak" (to you) papers early and skim through the rest of it quickly or look for better sources on the topic.
I'd suggest aiming to understand an idea a week, which maybe involves reading 2-4 papers, and skimming 15-20 more, plus background material in textbooks and Wikipedia. Doing that in 8-12 hours would already be pretty efficient.
Another pitfall I've had with regular reading like "a paper a day/week" is not to discard papers fast enough. Often the abstract either oversells the results, or the details are simply too obvious to you to learn anything new from them. Learn to recognize "weak" (to you) papers early and skim through the rest of it quickly or look for better sources on the topic.
I'd suggest aiming to understand an idea a week, which maybe involves reading 2-4 papers, and skimming 15-20 more, plus background material in textbooks and Wikipedia. Doing that in 8-12 hours would already be pretty efficient.