You know, here in the US, there are a lot of foreign born individuals who speak with an accent but still communicate very well. Language is a tool. Perfecting an accent at the expense of communication is forgetting that purpose.
Gathering every single step to achieve the best result. Obviously, most of us won't do that since it is too costly. But if you really target a very proficient level, the better way is focusing accent from the beginning. Maybe it will take about a whole year to correct, but if you try it after your imperfect accent has been deeply inside of soul, correcting will be more difficult even impossible. I do want to have standard accent because I don't want to give bad showing when I become a teacher in the future. So I am still trying and grinding at this point and I think it is worthy of my hard working