Time skips...nope.
Alarms...nope, I sleep my normal time. Work a full time job. Went to two movies last week and to two theme parks on Sunday. Spend gems...nope.
I have the following runs every day (rough times): 7 am, 11 am, 3 pm, 7 pm, 11 pm. Some of those get screwed up based on what I'm doing, but generally, it's five a day with full teams at Level 10.
After I finished Chapters 1 and 2, I didn't stop collecting...I kept going. I knew I didn't have all the characters in Chapter 3 at 10, so that would hold me back a bit.
I also came in top five for the first two leaderboards and got coins for those. And I tap those little crows with a vengeance...and the haunted attractions.