Hello fellow editors,

My work is about directing, shooting and editing music videos. Most time is spent on editing, by far.
As a starting company, we have low budget customers only, that means no money for anything else (actors, nice locations, props) but production services.
Almost every time my plot gets thrown in the trash because clients rely on people doing favors, wich always delay things, f*ck up with planning and often we have to postpone shooting because of the lack of essential elements to the video.
The main thing is, even with a improvised on-day plot, I get to shoot it fairly quickly. The problem is on editing.
First thing, without a plot to follow, I have to do it by heart. It means I will be watching the playback over and over again, sometimes spending 2 hours to advance 20 seconds into the timeline.
I want to know, how to become more time efficient in this situation? I guess most of you, even the big ones, at one point of life had to pass through similar moments.
How to take the most from improvised guerilla-fashioned productions and what should I be looking for?

Thank you in advance.