Weaving in your ends

Does everyone hate weaving in ends? I certainly do. I am never very confident that I am doing it right or that I am weaving them in far enough. My current method is to knot the two joining points with a reef knot (classic right over left, left over right), weave the end in about 2” in one direction and then weave it back in the opposite directions about the same distance. I try and avoid pulling either direction too tightly and then I snip off the end. I also have to do it as I go along. Waiting until the end of a project and then weaving in all the ends can be really painful, especially if there has been lots of changes in wool. I’d also like to point out that although I have lots of different darning needles, I obviously have a very favourite one – why is this??