Since you’re talking about the kind of changes to already-published chapters which could affect further writing… it might be useful to think about “editing” as a few different kinds of things:
- Rewriting: starting over with the same story, doing it again.
- Revising: almost rewriting, but leaves big chunks intact, moving them around or deleting, adding whole new sections to connect them better, changing the structure, altering order of events.
- Polishing: going through and changing language and writing style to improve the quality, focus in on the style. Could be done without a rewrite, by reading (or listening to) sections and wincing, then redoing the awkward, bad or confusing parts
- Tweaking: changing, adding or removing details because you no longer like them, or they conflict with a later part you’re writing. This is inevitable when “pantsing” or writing+publishing serially. You realize “oh wait, this character should have known about that event, and the reader should see their reaction” when you’re writing a later chapter. Or it’s as simple as thinking “wait it makes no sense for that character to bring a bow, they won’t be able to use it in the main combat coming up… should be changed to a sword.”
- Proofing: just fixing grammar, spelling, punctuation mistakes, impossible-to-read sentences, etc.
It sounds like you’re talking about “tweaking” but a really big tweak could turn into revising. However, little tweaks… you could probably do them as you go, and then you might have more confidence to push forward with the leading edge of the story? That’s how I feel about it, at least; dealing with those little problems removes a nagging problem in the back of your mind and improves your overall writing pace.
However if they’re big enough that it would interrupt your writing, either don’t bother with them (most readers probably won’t notice) or break it down into smaller pieces and just tweak a little at a time. TLDR: just tweak, don’t revise, to maintain pace.
I badly want to polish & do some revision to the early chapters in my main series, but I’ve started to accept that I won’t be able to focus on that properly without pausing new chapters. For many writers I think it eventually gets to the point where thinking about new readers starting with the oldest chapters is too aggravating, and you have to hiatus + polish, revise or rewrite, in order of severity.
