Lets first look at the conventional way of exercising.
Normally one would start out with a simple song and try to pick it. You would start out using notes on the leftmost side of the fret board. Once the melody sounds wrong, you realize you picked the wrong note and you try again. So, you slowly and surely work through the complete song, it takes long and you repeat the same initial sequences many times and you start memorizing note sequences. Finally, you play the song from memory and you loose the sheet reading capability you gained during the initial start-stop stages.