While bootloader is disabled hw reset and watchdog reset are fast and go after few if's to sketch. Enable bootloader before next flash by setting last eeprom byte to 0xff. While bootloader is enabled ...

ESP_EEPROM An improved EEPROM emulation Arduino library for ESP8266 The ESP8266 family doesn't have genuine EEPROM memory so for Arduino it is normally emulated by using a section of flash memory.