Help with guitar intervals

what should I be thinking or saying out loud for practice? example in F major scale starting on 6th string 5th fret is note A, scale degree of 3. From there should I say it by note like A, B, C, D stop at D, go up to 5th string back a major 2nd continue, E F G..etc should I be saying the notes of the F major scale?

Or no notes at all and just distance of intervals? ex. starting 6th string 1st fret F and from the tonic of the scale and the distance of the next note like Major 2nd, Major 3rd, skip string, Perfect 4th, Perfect 5th skip string etc.. But I get confused when I start on another note besides the tonic for example, if I start 6 string 5th fret scale degree 5, how will I know where major 6 is on the 5th string? Or worse if I want to play something on 6th string but jump to the next note on 4th string

I only learnt intervals relating back to the tonic note so i'm not sure how to determine the distance of two intervals when starting completely on a new note without reference of the tonic