I'm doing a home renovation and spackling is murdering. The process I've currently got is - Round 1 Spackle the tape, at least 2 hour turn around until it's dry enough to cover Round 2 Put a full coat with unwatered all purpose, have it be ~10 inches from the tape in all directions (takes a day to dry) Round 3 For in either left to right, or top / down with heavily watered / runny spackle. Use the 12 inch blade at a 85 to 90 degree angle to get a perfectly flat cut. This 100% levels out everything in either up / down or left / right. (normally takes about 1-4 hours to dry fully) Round 4 Do the same as round 3 but in the opposite direction. End result is perfectly flat in both up / down and left / right. (normally 30 min - 2 hours to dry) Round 5 Patch work in the same spirit as 3 / 4. Fill it bubble holes, scraps / accidental gouges etc. Do one last run on the edges for a flawless "feathering" in the approach of 3 / 4. At this point it should truly be flawless and 100% flat. After this do one to two runs across evenly with a orbital sander. End product is near flawlessly flat and feathered. These are for butt joints, not the joints where both ends are depreciated. So far this seems like "murderous overkill" for if I need to do ie lowering the whole place's ceiling and putting drywall throughout the whole place. It'll literally take weeks just for the spackling. (I get about 4-5 work hours per day) To me it seems the main things are - Use quick set on the tape and tape covering rounds to get a day turn around to a few hours. Consider using mesh tape to cut out the tape drying time. 2. Go out less distance from the tape to create less surface area. Less surface area means less spackle to put up for round 3 / 4. Since it's going to be guaranteed flawlessly flat, maybe 8 inches out or even 6 might work? 3. Maybe cut out Round 4 entirely and just make round 3 be against whatever direction the tape covering round was, and essentially make the tape covering round double as the round 4.