I think you have to find your happy place when searching and why you are doing it, it's going to be different with everyone. I have went about things in a very peculiar way but it has worked for me, somewhat....
My interest was 1st peeked by a 1914-D cent that sold for $5000 and I thought, that's pretty cool! I went on a short bend with cents and then ran across Morgan silvers dollars and fell in love! Still, to this day, my favorite coin I've ever searched. I did this for 6 years until it nearly broke me, financially and then fell all the way back to the
Lincoln Cent.
Lot's of deviations along the way but I have found that every denomination has it's thing. There are varieties, errors, transitional errors/varieties, special finishes,better dates/mm and so much more.
At the end of the day, the more you educate yourself about what you are searching, the more you will find, don't become complacent, with one particular thing to look for but look for as much as you can, when searching a particular denomination, year, mm, you will find there are patterns. I suggest sticking with a particular denomination though and learning them well, instead of going all willy nilly like I did.

The thing that drew me in at first, was finding something worth a bunch but as time has went on, I found I just liked to search and find things, whatever they may be. Believe it or not, the penny/cent, has probably taught me more than any other coin I've searched but that's probably because of the cost of doing business and could spend more time with it.
Just my take on your question.
-makecents-