I usually work by rejecting, in several passes.
First eliminate ones that are out of focus and other technical problems. I keep an eye on the rest to get an idea of what the better shots are, but I don't make any picks yet.
I might get rid of 20% in the first pass.
Second pass, having had a quick look at all the images, I eliminate another 20-30% that are obviously not going to make the cut.
Depending on how many images are left, I may do further passes eliminating the worst images, or I may change tack and start picking out the best ones. Sometimes it's pretty obvious, sometimes not. Really depends a lot on how many images I start with and how many I need to "keep".
The workflow you mention asks you to "pick" the ones you want a second look at. That is perfectly valid, and I sometimes do that. But I take a lot of shots usually, and my keeper rate is probably not that high, so for me, eliminating the bad ones first usually works best.