One of my top tips for a fast work flow is to map out the arrangement early on.

Build your key section, such as the groove (normally 8, 16 or 32 bars), and then map out your entire track.

Working from left to right can be time consuming having to restart the track every time to hear if things work. By doing the arrangement early on you can focus on creativity, and work down instead, building lots of layers and having fun with sounds.

After this stage it’s fairly straight forward to palce the newly created sounds as the story has already mapped out in front of you.