Also, put your game on 1/2 speed. Your villagers will have more research "sessions" per Village Year that way.
I will usually upgrade my Science Levels as soon as I can so each session is worth more, as well as upgrade my Medicine so that the villagers will be older before they enter "Elderly" mode. They will still work after that, but at a slower pace.
There are some events that will add tech points, but also some that will remove some (bad, bad monkey!) In additional a few valuable events that will upgrade a specific Tech Level!

But after the first two, events arrive about once a day (that you check-in)