Well, keep in mind there is more than one way to master this and for that matter I suspect most everything.
You will not generally engage in activation IF after photoreading a title you deem it unworthy. And yes this is 'intuition', which is can be regarded as a hunch brought to a fine art through inner development, trial and experimentation.
There is no reason to get dogmatic, find your rhythm and stick with it long enough to prove it out for you. For this reason it is nice to keep some kind of record.
You can desire to know a thing and even master it, but if that desire is not met with sincere willingness to use the information, your desire is compromised.
Hence, the complete fallacy of learning things you have no interest in. For want of goodly interest, a thing dies.
To the extent you can keep the lever short the better. Thus is the mighty weakness of formal education; the lever is generally long and often your attention scatters along the way.
Stay in touch with people 'doing daily what you are learning to do by photoreading' same if pursuing a profession via an education.
So, have I answered the question, do you have to... ...to succeed?
The answer is always yes and no and depends upon personal determination.
However, funny you frame the idea 'activation' as 'work'. This probably is not a useful approach. Activation occurs many ways and is surely a wonderful adventure into ever increased awareness and understanding. Is is not wonderful to see vast vistas across a clear horizon? To activate is to 'see'.
