I just tried something different with my fourth batch of drones - speeding them through the early stages to get them to YA on their second day.
I made sure the nooboos arrived early in the day and caked them up to toddler right away. I used the walker and the playpen to speed through skill training - they learn to walk on their own in about 2 sim hours and they learn talking in about the same timeframe. 3 visits to the potty each, and they're done. It's easy to get it all done in one day, but since cake only works once a day anyway, an Age of Instant doesn't work on nooboos or toddlers, it's no problem if they need to nap in between.
Skilling up the toddlers was really only for the lifetime happiness points for mom and dad - and since mom and dad had big wishes regarding the baby (have a baby, have a girl, have a boy, have a baby with _____) they both used a Wish Enhancing elixir shortly before birth to double those values. So that effect was still in place for the toddler skilling and age-up-well wishes.
As soon as mom popped the first nooboo, dad was on his way to the science center to get a clone. There were 2 girl nooboos in this batch, so dad got 2 clones. Then he rushed home, took over with the nooboos, and mom went to get cloned. I put cakes in the clones' inventories and sent them somewhere with a table they could put a cake on (library, swap shop, lot that a previous clone upgraded with tables that cakes work on
) and by the time they'd caked themselves up to teens they'd started spawning wishes and I sent them off to do whatever it was they wanted to do - or what I wanted them to do to regarding skills/future career.
Just after midnight, I started caking up the toddlers. I did all three quickly to children, and it was quite a frenzy cancelling everyone's birthday celebrating because all that noise is just irritating and because I wanted to get the next one to the cake as quickly as possible. Once they were all children, mom took half to one lot and dad took half to another lot in motive mobiles - everyone arrived happy with Age of Instant elixirs in their pockets. The children were aged to teens and then the teens to young adult - so 9 age-ups in all. I cancelled the horn blowing craziness and kept them moving as quickly as possible. It was a lot of switching back and forth between locations to make sure everyone was staying on track, but it all got done pretty quickly and in one day which meant only one graduation day.
As soon as they got to young adult, multi-tabs were distributed, and if they were to work on a skill that had a tabcast, they started listening. Then they went off to be "Personality Adjusted" using the Brain Enhancing 2.0 machines that previous drones had put on upgraded lots around town. With their traits adjusted, they used the Makeover Stations also conveniently placed by previous drones and they each made themselves over. By the end of the day (the day after the nooboos arrived) I had six new young adults, with the traits I wanted them to have, all made over and working on their skilling.
So now I have to see if that intense micro-management really takes time off the total days it takes to get the batch out the door and to get to the next Reproduction Day.
I'm determined to finish this before September 2.