Yeah, I fall into this trap too. I may set out with a few goals like going to a shrine I discovered but didn't get to yet or a sidequest I want to complete or an area I want to search about. However, after trekking out, I get distracted by new stuff or things I just discover and then want to mess about with. Last night, I booted up the game starting up where I left off in the Akkala region.My goal was to get the blue flame to Robbie's Tech Lab and get access to Ancient gear. I began by attacking all the moblins and bokoblins surrounding the countryside and path to the warehouse. Again, I really love my Sheikah outfit especially since I've upgraded it a few times. It just allows me to sneak up behind all manner of enemies and take the down with a sneakstrike in one hit. I am a ninja in this game. It also allows me to come up on animals and grab them before they have a chance to scurry off. Hightail lizards, insects and even fish. At one point, I was swimming across a lake and alternating hitting X and A to swim across and instantly grab a fish of some sort before it swam away. Just piling up my inventory.
After clearing a path from the enemies, I then began on getting the blue flame from the ancient furnace to the end goal. However, around the area there were a lot of unlit lanterns much like Hateno village. In Hateno village, I had searched all around and was pretty sure I'd found all the unlit lanterns and lighted them with the blue flame. I thought maybe lighting them all would trigger something like a classic Zelda puzzle but nothing happened and I was sure I hadn't missed anything. Seeing more of these lanterns, I wondered if they were connected so I went about carefully searching the countryside and making sure to light all the lanterns in this area. But still nothing happened. Maybe there's more lanterns to discover yet or maybe there is no real point to them but they continually stay light creating a neat effect at night time.
Of course, all this searching led me to ore deposits to smash and collect and some more Korok seeds and ruins to explore. After feeling I finally covered the area thoroughly and did all I could, I went to my original purpose for the whole endeavor. However, the price of gear and equipment was too much than I wanted to spend right now. I'm currently saving up 10,000 rupees for a purchase you can probably figure out if you've encountered it.
At this point, it was getting late and I felt I should try and make some progress so then it became a quick scramble to focus and go to a couple shrines and solve those and then rush to another couple areas where I wanted to collect some items and meet some people and then finally call it a night. It's always a mad scramble at the end of my play sessions to finish up something, take care of a couple things I also wanted and meant to do and prepare for the next play session all because I got distracted and focused on something else like lighting lanterns. I think Hyrule is doomed. I'm going to be unprepared for the coming second attack of Ganon because my Link was too busy messing about in some bushes for beetles instead of buffing up.