You must take care of the health bar of your villagers. If they are tired, bring them to eat or put them on farming, it's less hard.
Maybe I repeat myself but I think it's important to have some healers especially when you are not playing. Even if they have some healing skills your villagers will not heal anybody by their own if they are not checked as healer. So you may choose 2 of them as doctor (trainee doctor, it's sufficient) and put them on a task as farming, research etc... They'll work at that, less than the others but they'll do it and if one of your villagers is sick they'll go to heal him. Doing that, I never had a villager dead (except of his old age) when I return to my game!
I also try to have finished the dam and to have crops at the end of the first day; and I keep at least one villager on farming.
good luck!!

(it's late, I must quit)