hi Adam,
#2 sounds good. i'm not sure if i understand your #1 correctly, but if you're saying that some tensions are easier to chip away than others, so you'll keep chipping away the more doable ones first, then i think that's reasonable. as you keep clearing away what you can, more possibilities open up.
some more options...
causes and possible remedies for "tensions":
CAUSE: you are able to see all kinds of tension/suffering as tension, which is a form of insight. (whereas many normal, healthily progressing meditators only see gross tension as tension while interpreting the finer, subtler tensions as alluring bliss/pleasure/pleasantness/ooh-ah-satisfaction. then as their practice advances more, what they can perceive/ diagnose correctly as "tension" moves to finer and finer levels as they eliminate the grosser tensions.
this post suggests that you are more likely to be of the first type.) when suffering is seen as suffering--tension here, there, and tension everywhere, small tensions add up and accentuate the sharper tensions.
REMEDY: hurry up devote as much time and attention to practice as possible and you'll make fast progress, because your insight is farther along than your energetic make-up/level of suffering.
CAUSE: (a shadow side of insight mentioned above) being fixated on knowing that certain sensations are tensions, thus creating a mental processing of "i'm tense/i'm too tense/i'm still tense", an unsatisfactory evaluation/negative judgement which can keep subtly feeding and compounding the tensions more.
REMEDY: impose some more innocence, or what i like to call "unknowing" or "unknowifying" to every step of paying attention. also called "naivete", "curiosity", or "observing objectively" in my understanding. observe things as if you're an alien consciousness visiting this earth realm to observe what it's like to operate through the human body and its senses. the alien knows nothing about what anything is, but it has been sent to perceive everything possible in the most detail (otherwise it will get banished by the mothership). there is nothing wrong with knowing too little, but "knowing" too much can be a hindrance to effective investigation.
CAUSE: trying too hard to "look at" the sensations and to "see" their exact location on the body, the mind having the habit of processing "observation" and "paying attention" as exercising eye and forehead muscles. paying precise attention to body sensations is to the mind like trying to plot xyz coordinates on the body.
REMEDY:
1. do some non-location-specific breathing meditation: instead of trying to "see" where the breath is, where it's moving or the areas it's in contact with, instead of trying to "see" where body sensations are, follow the involuntary breath very precisely by setting your primary focus on feeling how full or empty the lungs are at each split second. of course this doesn't mean to know the exact air volume, but rather to know which part of the inhalation/exhalation the breath is at. like "just starting inhale...increase...more...1/2 full...increase...almost full...full...about to release...starting release...more exhale...1/2 empty...etc. but without the verbalization. with this being the primary object, this is where you're directing effort, but it doesn't mean you have to only perceive this and nothing else(or you could if you want to make it pure concentration practice). along with this, there can be random sensations that arise that catch your attention, but you won't be straining to see them because you're not trying to "look" at anything.
2. do body sensation awareness/observation with open eyes, sitting with a relaxed gaze at a park or some place without chaotic or distracting sights. once in a while, you might take note of how the eye/head movements and tensions might be connected to excess effort in paying attention, and how some of that unnecessary effort might be dropped.
3. rather than focusing mostly on 'seeing" what the sensation is, where it is, pay more attention to the entire process of perception and what it seems to involve (intention to pay attention? object? sensation? location? duration? reaction? distraction? any judging/evaluation? etc), with the sensation part being just a component of this process.
CAUSE: (the usual, normal obstacle) being ingrained in habitual patterns (of thinking, mental processing, reasoning, physical exertion, etc.)
REMEDY: do things that will shake up your usual patterns, such as:
1. going on a retreat of 10+ days: retreat time makes you do things with your attention that you're not used to, such as extended continuous attention, having to stay awake and practice when you're super sleepy/tired, etc.
2. exhaust your physical body with an hour (or two or more if you're quite fit) of intense exercise, and then meditate after that and see if the tiredness from muscle work makes you drop some excessive exertion. even just 15 minutes of exercising fast-twitch muscle (doing "as fast as possible" exercises in intervals) will put the system into a high-alert but high-relaxation mode.
3. some meditators experiment with fasting or sleep deprivation but personally i'm not a fan of those methods, especially in excess. it's probably useful to experiment a little, like not eating past noon on retreat and getting out of bed to meditate at weird times, but i wouldn't do anything too extreme.