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diotima wrote about the writing process he/she follows.
What you describe sounds more like the process that I follow when I'm writing fiction. With fiction I move slowly at first as I am establishing the setting, characters, and conflict. My writing speeds up towards the end as the events within the story make the ending inevitable.....if what I've written is good that is. hehe
For none fiction, I typically write in layers, starting with an initial brain dump which is essentially an outline and snipits of what I understand without having done much research or fiddled much with the software. For example, by a quick glance at an interface I can make an initial assessment of what sorts of instructional, reference, and other materials I'll need to cover. That's the first layer and I'm not concerned with how it looks or whether it is ready for print. I'm just dumping my thoughts onto paper.
After that initial burst of writing/outlining, I settle in to research and writing. I do both together so often that I can't really say how much time is spent on each, but I can guess that I get very little writing done in the early stages after the initial brain dump, and get more writing done as I'm nearing the end. I also write what I can when I can, putting in little highlighted notes where I need more information. For example, I recently had a how-to that was something like:
1. Start the process.
2. Load the thing you want to edit.
3. Do some stuff.
4. Click Save.
5. Close the process.
Obviously step 3 was the highlighted bit that I need to return to when the functionality is working, but the other steps are essentially "standard" steps that I can plop down without much thought.
When I said that I worked in layers, I meant that I make passes through the entire document, adding, updating, and deleting information as needed. Eventually, concepts solidify, consistency works itself out, and a flow and unity emerges.
Actually, now that I think about it, that's sort of what I do when writing fiction.....hmmmmmm.
Is this slow? I don't think so. And what you described doesn't sound like slow writing either. It just sounds like you're thorough. Some suggestions that others have made may help you "speed up" your process, but if you're doing good to great work and no one has yet to complain, you're obviously doing something right. No need to fix something that's not broken, right?
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