>>2947617
Sandpaper is cutting valleys or more intuitively reverse mountains into the surface. The higher grits cannot reach the peaks without removing bulk to get to the last cut of the low grits. Too high of a grit and it will never reach, only burnish the surface and chew up piles of discs.

Using progressive grits generally works. An example issue to me is trying to sand away too tall of a speed bump. A planer would only hit the bump because it's held parallel at that distance. The sander is going to curve around the bump or rock as I use it. The sander will then cut away areas beside the speed bump and also leave a gap in the middle. The low grit will dive into the material and I'll need to sand a lot of the broad surface to clean up the work.

There are all sorts of methods. I think it's good to put some mental effort into eliminating dust and consuming discs. Most experienced workers are going to naturally do something that makes sense, but early on I think most of us can create unnecessary work.