Trap One: Surface Fixes Feel Like Real Work
There are two layers to a redraft. Surface revision is the small stuff — typos, spelling, a comma, swapping one word for a slightly nicer one. Deep revision is the big stuff — the argument, the structure, the order, whether the whole thing actually says what you meant. Both matter, but they're not equal, and here's the trap: surface fixes feel like progress because they're easy and you can see them piling up. So people polish commas for an hour while the argument underneath is still broken. You can spellcheck a piece to perfection and still have it say nothing.
Trap Two: Getting Defensive
Feedback can sting, especially on something you worked hard on. The instinct is to defend the draft — “no, but what I meant was…” The catch is that you won't be standing next to your reader explaining yourself; the words have to do it alone. If someone genuinely didn't follow a bit, that's not them being thick — it's information. The strongest writers treat every confused reader as a free gift: a precise pointer to where the piece isn't working yet. Separate you from the draft, and feedback stops being an attack and becomes a map.
Trap Three: Knowing When It's Done
The opposite danger is never stopping. Over-polishing is real — past a point you start swapping good words for different-but-no-better words, or buffing one line while the deadline burns. A piece is done when more changes stop making it clearly better — when you're moving things sideways, not up. Done isn't perfect. Done is when the deep stuff is sound, the surface is clean, and the next change would just be fiddling. Learn to feel that line and you've learned the whole craft.