I have a few suggestions for players:

When selecting professions for people, make sure you follow their personality and don't give them a job they won't like to do. I have a person who doesn't like swimming, he is not a good farmer because of the fishing. Fortunately he is an excellent researcher, good for me because he is really old.

Also when building skills for your people, try to balance the men and women equally among each profession. Then when you start building your population, you won't have a whole segment of the work force for one job out of work because they are with the babies.

When you are thinking about boosting your population, make sure you have a good food supply. All those nursing mothers out of the work force and all those extra mouths to feed after the children are on their own.

When you have a large project to accomplish (clearing the beach, moving the stones, building a hut, collecting food etc) you can reselect their interests and get a large group working at once on it. This keeps workers involved in the project until it is done.

Related, since there is a lot of walking involved in some of the projects, you can keep an eye on a large group and when they complete a task and are walking back, give them a lift back to the beginning of the task. Cuts their work time in half. I think that in addition to speeding things up, by placing them back at the task, they are advancing their skill more than when they do it themselves.

I think the only way to advance farming skill is to take them to the berry bush, but I am not sure. You may want to get all your available farmers up to master level before you lose the bush. And I have always saved some berries before depleting the whole supply, I wonder if I will ruin the bush by doing so.

Another tip, the women can bear children even when they are old. If they are starting to slow down, get them pregnant. Chances are they are old enough to be REALLY good at something and will pass some skill to their children.