If you want to explain what is refactoring in one word — here it is: rephrasing.
You keep the meaning, but the form is different.
Code complete book says that preparation is like a half of the actual development.
On first look it seems quite strange — you’re working on the task for 2 days and at the end of the first day you didn’t deliver anything.
Whole our department have read the article, few guys even contemplated
https://medium.com/@way/rage-against-the-codebase-programmers-and-negativity-d7d6b968e5f3