Hmm. Maybe you would have better success if you were to do the practice questions the same day you read the chapters.

I am wondering why you are waiting until the next day to apply what you have been reading about.

Meanwhile, as you said the GMAT is not really about memorization. Be careful about how you prepare for SC. If you focus too much on thinking about rules and other technical things you may miss things like meaning, logic, and overall effectiveness of sentence structures.

Beyond that, once you get to doing the OG sentence correction questions you can assess where you stand and what you have to learn to achieve the SC hit rate you want to hit. Any questions you don't get right are indicators of things you need to change or learn. With those indicators in mind, you go back to the guides to review as necessary.

So first you seek to learn the concepts and rules just to get through the list and have some background. In the beginning you are to a degree working in a vacuum, mostly familiarizing yourself with things that someone says you need to understand. Then see how you do at the actual games of answering official practice questions and taking practice tests, and work some more on what you see you need to work on to increase your hit rates and scores.