icloud photo library is slowing down my workflow - any tips?

I take numerous, high quality videos of volleyball with my iPhone 13 Pro Max. I use the iCloud Photo Library and I optimize all of my devices (iPhone, iPad, iMac, MacBook Pro). When I take vids, my next steps are to watch all of the vids, identify the best ones, combine them in iMovie and then export the finished movie to then upload it to social media.

Before I used the iCloud Photo Library, I would take vids, come home, and sync to the Photos app on my iMac. That process didn't take very long to get all of the vids onto my computer ready for editing.

Now that I am using the iCloud Photo Library, my productivity has come to a crawl. Now I have to wait for the videos to upload to the cloud before I can work with them. I don't want to have to assemble the videos in iMovie on my iPhone. I want to use my iMac or my MacBook Pro. But I need the vids to be in the cloud before I can do that.

For example, last night I filmed a team make it to the State Finals and I have lots of great vids to share. With my old method, I would have stayed up late to assemble and share my movie. But thanks to the iCloud Photo Library, I'm having to wait for the vids to upload to the cloud first. It's been almost 24 hours and I'm still waiting for the upload to finish. It's so painfully slow.

I was told by Apple Support that importing photos/vids from my iPhone to Photos on my Mac (by plugging in/syncing) is inadvisable when you are using the iCloud Photo Library since it will produce duplicates.

Is there anything I can do to speed up the process of getting these vids to the cloud?

I have read that if I leave the phone plugged in with the screen never turning itself off and I go to the iCloud settings screen inside Settings, it can help encourage things to upload faster. Uploading over cellular just doesn't seem to happen with videos. Photos, sure, but not vids. But it's still taking forever. And with each new iPhone, the video files just get bigger and bigger as the quality improves.

I hate having to wait. I can't always leave my phone sitting for hours for the vids to upload. (Why didn't they upload overnight while I was sleeping?)

So frustrating. Any advice would be appreciated. I have another match to film tonight so I will have a couple hundred more vids to upload.