Let f(x) and g(x) be polynomials in $\mathbb F_{2}[x]$ with ${\rm deg}\text{ } f=n$. It is shown that for $n\gg 1$, there is an $g_{1}(x)\in \mathbb F_{2}[x]$ with ${\rm deg}\text{ } g_{1}\leqslant \max\{{\rm deg}\text{ } g, 6.7\log n\}$ and $g(x)-g_{1}(x)$ having $ \lt 6.7\log n$ terms such that $\gcd(f(x), g_{1}(x))=1$. As an application, it is established using a result of Dubickas and Sha that given $f(x)\in \mathbb F_{2}[x]$ of degree $n\geqslant 1$, there is a separable $g(x)\in 2[x]$ with ${\rm deg}\text{ } g= {\rm deg}\text{ } f$ and satisfying that $f(x)-g(x)$ has $\leqslant 6.7\log n$ terms. As a simple consequence, the latter result holds in $\mathbb Z[x]$ after replacing ‘number of terms’ by the L1-norm of a polynomial and $6.7\log n$ by $6.8\log n$. This improves the bound $(\log n)^{\log 4 +\operatorname{\varepsilon}}$ obtained by Filaseta and Moy.