There has to be a more efficient way to do this...

You know, I really would like to be the sort of person who can write a complete first draft, rough or otherwise, and have the editing process consist mostly of tweaking and ironing out that draft.

Instead, my writing process goes:

• Write 30% of a first draft, mostly the introduction of the story/chapter
• Create a second draft to polish that first 30%. You have not written the rest of the story yet.
• Write the rough follow-up to the story so that in terms of introducing the elements you'd like to have in it, you're about 70% done
• Create a third draft. Polish the introduction again, this time adding new chunks to it that come to you in the moment. You have not touched the rest of the story, meanwhile.
• Polish the rest of the story, but halfway to the end you either lose steam or had 6 new ideas and have included all of them. The draft still looks like you banged it out while half-asleep.
• Finally write a complete rough draft, all story elements included
• Create a fourth draft so you can finally start editing the whole thing. Once again, the introduction receives most of your attention, and you've still found new things to add to it.
• The story/chapter is eventually finished. At, uh, some point.

In conclusion: