I often wind up in strange areas doing minor cleanup.  Sometimes I'll get into a new area, then look at the category entries to see if things make sense.  If not, I'll look at the articles to change the cat and sometimes do minor work on the article.  Sometimes changes will be made to articles on my watch list and I'll look at the see also listing to see if there is something better. Sometimes I'll just find an article that needs work.  Sometimes when I'm looking at new artiles I'll try and see if there is a better article.  Sometimes there is but I might clean it up before I do a redirect from the new article.  Last week somone created a weak article for one of a pair of articls on my watch list and changed the link from the old general article to the new weak overly specific one in the other.  That lead me into a few other areas doing research.  Bottom line, I just flitter around.  Hope this answers your question better.