I don't find Tales stressful to play, you just have to let go of the fact that you are going to miss crafting marble keys some days. Planning ahead is definitely useful and the Tales follow a pattern so once you get used to it, it becomes easier.
For Example:I set up to be able to craft and hatch my first dragon ASAP (beginning of day 2), then I think day 3 is a "start quest" one but I evolve the dragon at least once before setting it off on a quest. It doesn't matter if you start the quest at the beginning of the day or end as it is the last act in that chapter. I don't hatch the common dragon in advance but I start trying to breed it 2 or 3 days before needed and since I have two nests, I can leave it on a nest until needed. People say you can hatch in advance, but I think I did that once and it did not pan out well for me.
World event I have not been able to complete without using about 200 gold for a while, which is frustrating.
Leaderboard I used to be able to get the last milestone without gold but now that it is cut down to 7 days I need gold. I did only use about 30 gold this go around, so not nearly as bad as World Event.
I do have 2 gold producing dragons now so I get 8-9 gold per day (collecting is weird), which helps the wallet immensely! I'm going to eventually get a 3rd nest. I use the breeding roost usually during World Event as that 100 gold spent also goes towards points towards the one monthly dragon that you get by getting points through breeding. With just one den (Android player), it takes 33.3 days of continuous breeding and Storm8 only gives you 30 days.
We should share game play strategies so people can enjoy the game more. I've had to change my strategies recently but I found it makes the game more enjoyable without spending loads of money.