About the discord, since this part is shorter: What I do to prevent distraction is to do a few versions of the exercise (example: 2 superimposed lines, or 1 ghosted plane), take a photo, and post that to the discord. I ask if I'm on the right track, and request a ping so that I can continue working without checking back on the server. Then I finish the page, post that, and continue to the next page or exercise.

That aside.....

Drawing fun stuff is incredibly important!!

I always use the example of nature documentaries. If you are only drawing to learn (only draw a box/loomis/brent eviston/etc) then it is like only ever watching a nature documentary for a test. Drawing for the sake of drawing (referred to as "drawing for fun", or the 50% rule) is like watching a nature documentary for the sake of the documentary.

In both cases you learn and take in information, but if you only ever watch documentaries for tests then you're probably going to get sick of watching documentaries. In the case of DAB/learning to draw, that means burning out-like a candle reaching the end of its wick.

That doesn't mean you have to draw things exactly the same as DAB, just that you're still drawing. To go back to the nature documentary example, drawing on paper is like watching documentaries about birds, where drawing digitally is like watching documentaries about fish. Both are still nature documentaries, though they don't go over the same things. It gets to be an issue when you start to think about sculpting or 3D modeling, which are more like documentaries about WWII or engineering. Still creative (documentary), but war and machines have very little to do with nature.