My experiences with scientific review article writing

Niche-seeking phase

At this point the scope of the review is not determined. Read numerous relevant review papers. Read as many papers (abstract only) as you can. Think hard and find a place of your own. 

Stop reading a paper further once you get an idea on what it is. Write a shortest-possible (that flash your memory in future) summary on it.

At the end of this phrase, you know what is there in the field, you know (hopefully) an area / point-of-view that is not covered by other reviews. Construct an outline based on this niche you have found.

Literature-hunting phase

You don't want to miss any relevant paper out there and piss someone off. Look up the very first nice papers that opens up the field. Check out their citations. Yes, if it has 300 citations, you gotta go through all of them... Again, write short summaries. 

Building the frame

Write texts that include every relevant references. Group them in a coherent manner. Write up a rough logical connection between them. 

Elaboration phase

Read the high-quality papers in your theme carefully and add materials to your text. It is a time-costly mistake to read the not-that-relevant papers to an inappropriate depth. Bare in mind, you are looking for useful information, NOT trying to understand the paper as nice as possible. On the other hand, if that is something you decided to say, dig a bit deeper than what you need.

Polishing phase

In general, the less words you use to express an idea, the better the writing is.

Tricks to save time:

• The work tends to branch off in 10 different directions. To maintain focus and get things done, leave [FURTHER INVESTIGATION] so that you can work on it in the future.
• In the first version, write crap and polish it later. The unpleasant feeling of reading crap indeed stimulates ideas for improvement. 
• This is difficult, but try it. Instead of spending time until it is good enough, try to deliver the best within a given amount of time. Believe me, writing can take forever if you do not construct a strategy and execute it in a disciplined manner.
• Instead of trying to work whole day and get distracted often, arrange intensive working session(s) in your day. The idea comes from the setting of exams. Beyond the working session, do whatever you like to recharge. This approach ends up saving my productivity and well-being a lot!