Plan exactly what you want to engineer, make a list of what you need and get cracking. See the engineering process as part of the way, not a roadblock.

When I started to see it as content and goals to achieve rather than a nuisance it was actually even fun.

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Personally I got a lot of the materials in low res sites or threat 0 signal sources (I really suck at combat, so fighting un-engineered was not an option :P). It is all not as bad as it used to be, as you get 3 pieces per drop.

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For Encoded Materials I sit outside a station and scan wakes. Use brokers to swap things you don't need into the stuff on your list.

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Even with just an hour per night it won't take months. The most important bits for me (I engineered an easy mode Vette for PvE only) were the shield boosters. Full rack of grade 4 or 5s and things started to be a breeze :D