Strongly disagree. Play, play, play. If you enjoy playing, play. If you enjoy studying, study. Let your study fuel your desire to play and let your play fuel your desire to study. Most of all, enjoy Go in the way that seems best to you.
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Your advice is right after my own heart. Will try to do both even though I enjoy PLAY much more.
Life is too short for all work and no play! 
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So my starter Go set arrived from Japan a few hours ago and I persuaded my husband to play with me.
It was a rout. He won all.
I gave him Black thinking I was the superior player albeit I lost all but one 13x13 games to Master Mantis. He registered for but never visited OGS, just got started on The Interactive Way… which I have already completed and has not touched Marks very useful Exercises for Beginners at all whereas I have at least worked on the first 10. His only edge on me was he played Chinese chess decades ago while I never touched it. I hate calculating others’ every move in advance. That should perhaps rule out Go for me.
I am still determined to learn if not master the last of the Four Chinese Arts (琴棋書畫) which I have not done. After I retired, I learned to play the piano, did Chinese calligraphy and took up painting.
Go remains a challenge in the autumn of my life. And I will not go fishing, oops! I mean shopping, instead. 
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Calculating others’ every move in advance certainly sounds extreme, and I would say very few people do this well and even pros and AI can’t do it perfectly.
It may be beneficial to think of it as “building up your understanding of what is possible, both for you and your opponent” rather than “calculating every [possible] move” 
Certainly a past history of thinking strategically will be an advantage, but do not give up! After all, there is more to learn from losing and reviewing than there is from winning (even though winning is admittedly the more pleasurable of the two) 
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It seems like this excellent thought went un-noticed.
This is absolutely true and massively important. Especially in larger board sizes.
9x9 is described as “a knife fight in a cupboard”. So capture can be more important in that brutal little fight.
But in the more spacious games, it’s all about territory. Territory is points, and points win. So the most important things are surrounding your opponents stones (to contain them so they can’t make territory) and surrounding your own territory. Fighting is not usually “to kill” it is “to force your opponent to respond and play where they didn’t want to, while you play where you do want to, so you make territory”.
GaJ
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Then don’t. Learn shapes. Learn big moves. That’ll get you pretty far. Try looking at Dwyrin’s Back to Basics series, which focuses on strategy without much fighting.
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Such an astute observation, GAJ.
I have been practising 13X13 and was completely floored by the 19X19 configuration in my own set when I played with my husband. 
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Many thanks, mekriff. I don’t like cat fights! 
I finished The Interactive Way and started on Dwyrin last night.
I do appreciate all the helpful advice here.
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Made noticeable improvements and surprised my husband after I finished Dwyrin 01 and read up other stuff on good shapes and big moves. But now he knows the tricks.
For me an effective way to learn is to focus on a couple of subjects rather than grapple with everything at the same time.
Have decided to play only 19X19. Also ordered the two books recommended by Kosh. I will then take up the offers of teaching games from GAJ and a couple of other experienced players.
Advice always welcome and appreciated. 
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happy to hear.
Share some of your games if you ever feel like it (although I guess you are not recording those from real board 
). Reviewing and looking for mistakes/esp. good moves together can also help a lot (IMHO).
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Thank you, Adam.
I have decided to stop playing with bots as it is so disheartening to lose all the time. I bought a GO set and now play with my husband. He is sneakily(!) learning the game on his own, but from time to time we share what we have garnered from different sources. He is thorough and deliberate while I tend to be impatient and intuitive
I’d like to think that I am one up on him as I have all the OGS resources at my disposal, like watching a live game you played a few days ago. It was a revelation. I also follow other games.
Is it all right for me to continue to share my personal experience here or is that discouraged as being unproductive?
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We’d love you to share!
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Go ahead and keep sharing! I personally am enjoying seeing someone grow and develop from this game. Especially since it might shed insight on what my next steps may be.
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GAJ, thank you so much for your teaching games.
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It’s been a pleasure, I’m learning a lot
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Me again.
My wrestle with GO was interrupted by Shingles on my face!! 
The virus attacked the Maxillary Branch of the Fifth Cranial Nerve. Would not wish that on my worst enemy. Healing was made complicated by my allergy to the usual oral drugs. Ended up in hospital to take the medicine through a drip.
I still have a lot of pain, numbness and spasm on one side of my face.
Aging is not for wimps. Not something that the majority of participants here need to worry about for decades.
I managed to go through Cho Chi Kun very briefly. To my surprise, the lessons he outlined are not unfamiliar to me as I have been gobbling up whatever GO lessons I could find.
Putting it into practice is another matter altogether. 
Will now turn to Graded Go Problems recommended by Kosh.
I went through Dwyrin’s first video on Basics. But dare I confess that I find it hard to take to him as a teacher/presenter! 
In the meantime, husband brags he has learned the Japanese way of counting when I can only do the Chinese.
Still plugging away at this exasperating and challenging game. And kudos to all other beginners who have not given up! 
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Really? I learned Japanese counting looong before Chinese.
Is there a fast way to do Chinese counting?
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I know what you mean, and I had a similar experience at first 
I almost hated him. Sometimes he seems rude, even bothered to be playing at all (at least I got that first impression watching him). He is a strange personality for sure. But over time I have grown to like him (and the basic videos got much better as well I think). And I dare say he is from a large part responsible for my current rank, so if you ever feel like it I recommend giving him another try (maybe skip a few of the first videos as well).
There is a “fast way” to Chinese counting. I too prefere Japanese, but not that I would say Chinese is comparatively worse, or slower. In fact when you watch someone good at Chinese do the counting it can be quite a spectacle stones are flying all over. And if you were not aware, in Chinese you can only count points for one player.
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I actually think Dwyrin is a funny guy. He has a quirky sense of humor, for sure, and a lot of people might not like it, but that’s one of the reasons I watch him. I agree with you that the Basics videos have improved over time. The early videos in the series were a bit rough (he was still figuring out the formula).
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I totally agree with you there.