There are some tried and tested patterns for doing this, but if you'd like to save yourself some work and get extra functionality at the same time, you might want to check out Skoodat Relax. Skoodat have built a package up on the platform specifically for scheduling batches with as much power as possible and it sounds like a good match for your needs.
Otherwise, the limit of five jobs is being increased, and you can take the approach you've suggested. Depending on the exact details of the job you're running, you may be able to leverage triggers to do the processing on the other objects and just run the batch on your main record set.
Rather than scheduling a one-time job, schedule a recurring job.
Schedule the job to run on an hourly interval (every hour). As part of the finishing phase of your job, cancel this hourly schedule and replace it with another similar hourly schedule where the first execution is set to be a short period (let's say 5 minutes) from the finish of the job.
This works in a very similar way to using a "one off" schedule (as per your existing implementation) - in both of these implementations the job is rescheduled in the finish phase, but by using a recurring schedule you have the added benefit that if for any reason the job does not execute, the platform will attempt to run it again an hour later, and every hour until it succeeds.
Note that we don't know why the job may fail to execute - but we're assuming that it relates to platform maintenance. Chaining one-off scheduled jobs together relies on the successful start and completion of each job for the integrity of the chain, whereas using a recurring scheduled job provides "auto-resume" behaviour regardless of the successful start / completion of an individual job.
Example process flow:
(1) at 12:00 we schedule a job to run every every hour, at 5 minutes
past the hour: 12:05,13:05,14:05...etc...
(2) at 12:05 the batch manager job is started according to the hourly
schedule, and this checks your custom batch job object records to see
if there is any work currently running or waiting.
It finds that there are no jobs running but there is a job waiting:
"Foo". The batch manager therefore starts the batch process for Foo.
(3) at 13:05 the batch manager job is started according to the hourly
schedule.
On this occasion it finds that job Foo is in progress and so quits
taking no action.
(4) at 13:35 job Foo finishes.
In the finish phase, the existing hourly scheduled job is cancelled,
and another new hourly job is scheduled, this time to run at 40
minutes past the hour: 13:40, 14:40, 15:40...etc…
(5) at 13:40 the batch manager job is due to start according to the
hourly schedule, but this fails (we assume because of platform
maintenance)
(6) at 14:40 the batch manager job is started according to the hourly
schedule.
It finds that there are no jobs running but there is a job waiting: "Bar". The batch manager therefore starts the batch process for Bar.
etc.
Best Answer
The system executes jobs based on resource availability. The actual execution time may differ from the scheduled time, although it is usually only off by a few seconds in most cases.
All Apex Code has only one speed: full speed. If your code is slow, it is most likely because of the logic in the execute method of your batchable class; this is the part that takes the most amount of time when processing data. You will need to optimize your execute method so that it runs faster.
This might mean using maps instead of putting loops inside of other loops, using more efficient hashCode/equals methods, optimizing encryption, etc. There's no way to give you specific advice without seeing your code.
If possible, you should set your batch size as large as possible. Processing 2,000 rows per batch is far more efficient than processing 5 records per batch. You should experiment to see how many records per batch would be appropriate for your use case.