First of all, make sure your game is on half speed. Your villagers will eat less food and get more work done.

Waiting out an illness does not work in Virtual Villagers. Drop a villager on top of the sick willager until they heal him. Sometimes they shake their head no a few times, but it will heal him, plus extend his life bar. You should have a villager who can heal even if you don't tell them to. Drop them on the cactus until they become at least a trainee doctor, although adept works better. Children can heal too.

If you are desperate for tech points, watch your villagers at work. When they take a little step to the side,l they have earned to points and can be picked up and dropped back at the table. This means you geta lot more tech points in a lot less time.

If you are running out of food, you can use your children to collect mushrooms so your villagers do not starve to death. Mushrooms pop up when the game is paused too, so if you are really really in need, pause the game and wait for mushies to pop up. If you have more than one child, you can drop them all on the same mushroom and they will all pick it and give you more food.

You can get techs without purchasing them only through certain events, if you are lucky enough to get them.

How long it actually takes depends on your strategy. I've had games that I've gotten off the ground completely in 6-7 hours, and other games that took significantly longer before I dared let them operate without me babysitting them.

Did that help?