Ah, Now I get what is happening with you. So i'll go ahead I share my workflow with you. This workflow is the fruit of years in editing, so I hope you'll benefit from it.
My workflow is the opposite of yours, I keep my proxies on an external so I can edit offline on the move. And while your concept is correct, it's implementation is somewhat flawed.
1- Start by organizing your assets on your local drive efficiently: Solid folder structure + File renaming. I work with Sony A7 iii. So you can figure that there will be a lot of duplicates since my camera resets filenames every-time I change my Card, and for some reason I cannot change the prefix. So i'm stuck with hundreds of C001 files which will confuse Premiere and it's Proxy workflow.
So depending on the nature of your project, the number of cameras that are filming, number of days, etc. You need to create a very duplicate proof folder structure and file renaming. (more on that if you need to)
2- I would skip proxying by ingesting. Instead I import the folder where my footage is and thus premiere will create bins similar to the folders on your system. Wait a couple of minutes for everything to conform, save. Select all, right click and create proxies.
3- Create your own Proxy preset. Mine is a very low bit rate SD resolution with the watermark "Proxy" on the bottom left. It is a bit complicated to create an ingest preset, as you have to do it in Media Encoder by creating a preset and then creating an Ingest preset based on it. If you don't know how to, I will gladly help.
4- Destination: I have an external drive dedicated to proxies. I create one folder named the same way as my project's name folder, BUT it does not contain any extra folders or folder structure. All Proxies live directly In it. Why do I skip the folder structure? Because it will be a tedious task to replicate the detailed folder structure for proxies and the renaming of the files will take care of avoiding duplicates. Also I have never needed to browse the proxies folder. It is just a place where the proxies and I treat as Cache folder.
5- Mobility: This is probably the most important part. When I'm on the move, I only take my Proxy external with me. Well what about music? Audio? extra assets that I might need for my project and the project file itself?
a) I Heavily Rely on an app called "Sync Folders Pro". This app makes sure that everything on my main Drive is constantly copied to my External Drive EXCEPT High resolution video files. In Other words my Proxy external contains 2 folders: one called proxies, and the other called mirror. Inside proxies there is folders named after projects and the corresponding proxies lives inside. The other folder is Called mirror which contains an exact copy of my main drive without the big video files. That includes project files, music, audio files, documentation, etc.
b) I also Heavily rely on Adobe CC Folder, where my projects are backed up every 5 minutes to the cloud and synced with my laptop. This way I always have the latest project on both my iMac and my Macbook
When opening the project with the proxies only while the full res are offline, Premiere will ask you to locate those. Press Cancel, do not Press Offline All. This way when you open again and your HDD is turned on, it will not ask you to locate.
6- About renaming: If you spend time organizing your files and your folder structure on your system before importing to premiere, you will find yourself not needing to rename anything in premiere and re-organize your bins. Depending on your project, you might need to input "comments" for each file and/or various metadata.
I hope that's helpful for you. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.