When you need to apply for a whole bunch of visas, especially those which may not be as easy to get, consider the benefits of reading through all the application forms (online and offline) and all the supplementary information well before you actually need to apply and then again in the run-up to applying (just in case things have changed).
Just when I thought I'd got everything done I've hit one small question I need to check with Dragoman as a part of getting the Uzbekistan visa. A small thing, but checking all of this 2 months ago and then 2 weeks ago would have saved me a whole load of stress and means I wouldn't be up at 1am dealing with visa paperwork. As is all the paperwork I've got will be posted tomorrow morning and I've paid the extra for express/urgent/justdoitnow processing of everything - yes that is money which could be spent elsewhere, but without the visas there is nowhere else to spend that money.
Making the visas work for this trip is something which caused a chunk of headaches back in October (see this, this, this and this), so it's pretty bloody stupid of me to have these issues now. You live and learn.
