You're asking the equivalent of "how do you take your coffee? For I wish to drink coffee the way other writers do so that I may be a writer."

To be fair, I often ask questions of #askhubski that I don't know the answer to for myself personally (or if I am reconsidering my previous answers). It's not necessarily because I expect that other people will be able to provide answers that I can then appropriate but because I want to see how other people approach the same process, in the hopes that maybe seeing/using their methods might yield results that are meaningful to me. Seeing how other people think can help me re-examine a situation in a different light or take details into consideration I hadn't factored for before.

How do you know when it's done?

- See, I know it's done when I realize I'm adding shit for me, not for anyone else reading it. And I stopped doing that a long f'ing time ago. So I know it's done when I've edited it once.

I know I'm done with something, truly done with something like a poem, when I can't see the forest for the trees: I can't find anything to change about it. That's when I try and toss it out for outside review, when possible. Kind of similar to asking for advise on how one edits, I rely on detached observers whose opinions I trust to provide a new perspective that will hopefully help me get to a better poem. It's not perfect and you can't rely on other people all the time, but especially when starting as a writer (college-level creative writing workshops) it's INCREDIBLY helpful. After college, you learn to do it on your own...but an outside eye is still, usually, nice.

| "cafes or study rooms?" You write where you are. |

Yes. With this I do agree. OP, jayfixkleenit, figure out what setting works for you and edit there. Do you need peace & quiet, or can distraction help you? Do you like background noise? It's about finding a setting that helps you do what you need to do, not wearing a beret, listening to jazz music and snapping at the riffs you like. The latter, that's accoutrement. (And it's a stereotype. It's a stereotype I hate which is why I'm picking on it.)

Personally, when I edit: Often I can edit a piece 1 or 2x immediately. (Keep in mind I mostly write poetry not prose.) I write it, re-write it, maybe re-write it again. Then I put it away for a little, maybe a day or two, maybe less if I like it. I edit it again. I put it away for longer. If I really really like the poem I have to put it away for a month or more at a time. To edit well you must, as kleinbl00 said, detach yourself from your work. Time above all things helps this.

Recently I wrote a book of poetry and have been struggling with editing it. I've done it twice but I've still been too close to the material and the project to be "done." I know it's not done - but for four months I haven't touched the book. I don't have the energy and - I'm too close to the material. I can't see the forest for the trees; can't see the flaws for the work and words in there. I'm starting to feel ready to pick it up again and, once work dies down (three more weeks!!) I plan to.

Then what I'm going to do is: print off a draft. Take a colored pen. Read every line. Cut every non-essential, and I do mean essential, word out. Some poems I will entirely gut and re-write. Some, I will experiment with: put them in a Word doc and write them out three or four times, see what I come up with, what I like best. Keep the best version. Some poems I probably won't change much. But I may play just to see what I come up with. Even if you think a passage is great, play with it. See what you can do with it. You may surprise myself.

I will probably do this in a surge of about a week. Editing is my least-favorite part but it is also the most essential. I will probably do this in my house though I may do parts at a bar, the cross-outs and under-lining parts. I will have some sort of background noise going. Until I get my groove on I will take frequent breaks to do pointless things, but at some point it will click, I will stop feeling like a crap poet and realize that some of the stuff I've written is actually pretty good, and the rest of the ride will be a merry jolly little cutting party.

I will keep copies of previous drafts to compare, but I probably won't. (Compare them, I mean.) I'll rearrange pages. And at some point I'll find I can't do anything more with it, again, and at that point, I think I'll be done. Three edits is enough.

Then...I'll figure out how to self-publish ;)