Let me introduce the “return first” method. Fear not, this is not a treatise on guard-clauses. It is, however, both a code design approach and a refactoring method. It starts with a simple question to ask yourself whenever you want to call a function:

Can I return first?

That’s supposed to be catchy, but it is probably not terribly enlightening. Let me demonstrate with an example. I’ll be using C++, but I dare say that this method can be used in all imperative languages.

void process_all(
  std::vector<input_info_t>& input_list,
  context_t const& context,
  target_t const& target)
{
  for (auto& each : input_list)
  {
    if (some_filter_applies(each, context))
    {
      hand_off_to(each, target);
      continue;
    }

    process_one(each, context);
    hand_off_to(each, target);
  }
}

For the sake of this example, the three functions some_filter_applies, process_one and hand_off_to are immutable. Let us try to improve process_all by extracting a function:
void maybe_process_and_hand_off(
  input_info_t& input,
  context_t const& context,
  target_t const& target)
{
  if (some_filter_applies(input, context))
  {
    hand_off_to(input, target);
    return;
  }

  process_one(input, context);
  hand_off_to(input, target);
}

void process_all(
  std::vector<input_info_t>& input_list,
  context_t const& context,
  target_t const& target)
{
  for (auto& each : input_list)
  {
    maybe_process_and_hand_off(each, context, target);
  }
}

So what do we have now:

26 instead of 17 lines. 22 instead of 13 if we do not count lines with just braces, a 70% increase.
A pretty clumsy name for the function called in the loop. Can you do better?
We have to pass the target all the way to hand_off_to without really using it directly in maybe_process_and_hand_off.
The complexity is more or less the same.

So that was not great. So let us try to use return first and focus on hand_off_to. What if instead of calling hand_off_to, we just return first, and then do it? In this case, it’s pretty easy, since hand_off_to is a tail-call in each case:
void maybe_process(
  input_info_t& input,
  context_t const& context)
{
  if (some_filter_applies(input, context))
  {
    return;
  }

  process_one(input, context);
}

void process_all(
  std::vector<input_info_t>& input_list,
  context_t const& context,
  target_t const& target)
{
  for (auto& each : input_list)
  {
    maybe_process(each, context);
    hand_off_to(each, target);
  }
}

Now we no longer have to pass target through a function that does not need it, which makes both the call site and the function declaration simpler. Now a few more other refactorings are available. Let’s assume some_filter_applies is pure and process_one only changes its input parameter, as the signatures suggest. We can use loop fission, and inline the function again:
void process_all(
  std::vector<input_info_t>& input_list,
  context_t const& context,
  target_t const& target)
{
  for (auto& each : input_list)
  {
    if (some_filter_applies(each, context))
    {
      continue;
    }

    process_one(each, context);
  }
  for (auto const& each : input_list)
  {
    hand_off_to(each, target);
  }
}

“return first” actually works for all control structures, not just functions. So in this case we returned from the first loop before starting to call hand_off_to multiple times. Often times, the code will not be as easy to refactor, because there is actually some data flowing between the function we’re in and the one we’re calling. The simple solution then is to pack all the parameters into a struct and return that, aka using data as the interface instead.
void hand_off_individually(
  std::vector<input_info_t>& input_list)
{
  for (auto& each : input_list)
  {
    auto target = compute_target(each);
    if (!target.valid())
      continue;

    hand_off_to(each, target);
  }
}

That be turned into this:
void hand_off_individually(
  std::vector<input_info_t> const& input_list)
{
  struct targeted
  {
    input_info_t info;
    target_t target;
  };
  std::vector<targeted> valid;
  for (auto const& each : input_list)
  {
    auto target = compute_target(each);
    if (!target.valid())
      continue;
    valid.push_back({each, target});
  }

  for (auto const& each : valid)
  {
    hand_off_to(each.info, each.target);
  }
}

This is definitely longer, and probably not worth the hassle for this contrived example – this is more to show how to do it, not that is is effective.
Evaluation
In real programs, this applying “return first” is often worthwhile. It makes the code flow “wider instead of deeper”, which is often easier to follow, especially if you try to debug or measure/profile your code. It is also a gold-recipe to enable batching, which is curcial whenever you’re dealing with latency, e.g. when using RAM or building web requests. Have you tried this technique before? Do you, maybe, know it by another name? Do tell!
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