Spend more time on your studies. I don't think there is much to learn from doing many quick stuff from magazines. Instead, do 2 refined copies (in pencil) from sargent or repin or any painter who were able to concieve the head in distinct masses of color and tone. Employ the knowledge gained from these in your next set of skull studies (drawings conciously executed with mass and line, with a complete overview over all value relationships*). Combine all this with "conceptual construction" (Loomis, kChen, Bammes, Bridgman, Vanderpoel etc.).
During and after all this, you'll probably notice that the speed will pick up. You can't learn to be quick by painting quickly. Any musical perfomer would agree with me on that
*Big emphasis on relationships here. What is a pure black in the reference can be a gray in your drawing, as long as all the other half tones and lights correspond to that value.
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