One thing I always did during my first playthrough that I think made things harder for myself was I always had this obsessive compulsive thing to let my party leader's attack queue finish before switching paradigms even when I urgently needed to heal. Don't do this, because just wanting to wait a few seconds more to get a couple more attacks in may hurt you more than help you. Switch paradigms as soon as you need to. The battle also goes much faster when you shift during an animation.