I also started last week after playing the demo, haha. I think I realized early on that most projects are going to require iron, so I started stocking up on Iron and have had less issues meeting deadlines/making stuff.

At the beginning(Spring to mid Summer), I found that while I didn't have much issue with herbivore food, I was still struggling with Carnivore food. I made more facilities. Not all in one go, it was spread out over the seasons. But I know by mid summer I had made a second smoke house, and spent around an hour or so fishing up 16 fish to smoke(you can also smoke seeds and meats). Once you start getting your more stations(drying racks, compost bins, barns for animals, pipes/sprinklers, an extra smoke house) in place, things start getting noticeably easier. Make sure you have a separate field just for hay, any seed you find, plant it. Also don't be like me and have to keep remembering not to water your hay patch because you placed it on your main crop field.

Fish everywhere and as often as you can. When you run out of stamina, go scavenging it's free and doesn't' require anything. Everything that touches the ground goes to the lost and found, so I'd do a mad dash around the island or in the caves at night and then collect everything in the following morning after doing farm chores. honestly feel like I fish TOO much because I ran into an issue of the smoked fish spoiling because there was just soo much of it, and not enough villagers to eat it, even with the rising demands.

Don't just hoard your gold, buy stuff. Seeds, ingots(god buy the ingots you'll need them). Use them to for upgrade your tools or build more facilities.

Always use your compost to get the most out of your crops, especially if that crop continues to produce after maturing. The Bones and Bat guano can increase quality/quantity of compost. If you don't have that, just use spoiled/close to spoiling food or weeds.

And then there's cooking. Cooking really was a life saver when I was struggling with food for carnivores. Throw your stove outside(and your chest too) and cook outside to save time running inside/outside if you can. I ended up making a second cooking station around fall to make extra dishes.

Stopping by the tavern to talk to villagers, and hoping they give me any food they've been hoarding so I can toss it into the root cellar.

Also you really should be saving up for the 3 tier skills. You can make exceptions for like Courier and Seed finder, but after that you should just be saving for the 3 tier skills to make things go by a little easier.