Storage
Your storage can't be too big. My was 330 and I almost always felt that it was much too small. Consider 10 spaces for each level to be the minimum to aim for. It is booring as **** to be buying storage stuff for a week or two, but it needs to be done. Tip: it is much easier to find them when the Mayor competition is on, so just do a stay round or two and upgrade instead of trying for the top. You need the big storage for a number of things
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VU stuff. Don't start a round and expect to end up in top 10 unless you have enough to launch at least 10 disasters. That's 3 disasters for the 3k missions and one extra just in case. VU stuff are too hard to find in trading HQ that you can't rely on finding them when needed. That's like 60 storage spaces for me
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Tokyo/London/Paris stuff. Also impossible to find reliably. At least two of each item, remember to restock if you use them. Lets say 20.
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Mid level production stuff. Consider the Cherry Cheescake which which uses 1 sack of flour(30m), one Fruit and Vegetables (1h 30m, plus one Tree Saplings (1h 30m)) and one Cheese (1h 45m). Producing what is needed for seven Cheesecakes without having anything ready takes over a day or would use three gold tokens. Hard to say an amount, more is better, let's say 60 as in VU stuff
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Stuff for deliveries. One of the fastest missions can suddenly take a looooong time when you don't have a Fruit and Vegetables ready. Plane deliveries seems to be less than boat deliveries where I've seen 11 planks. Also very hard to say an exact number so lets go with 60 again.
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Upgrading town zones and repairing disaster areas. Most stuff that you need here are pretty fast to produce, but a pair of bricks, a couple of nails and some cement quickly adds up. Repairing disaster areas after a 3*launch disaster means that you will need to upgrade 12 zones (2*6 easy repairs, leaving all zones of the the third disaster unrepaired), lets say 50 or 30 with some production.
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Swallowing materials from a full factory production line, that is 40 spaces on my level with eight factories. Of course you can(should) always sell the items in Trade HQ but that takes time and sometimes things just don't sell at the HQ.
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Factory materials for production. No real limit here on how much you want, but lets say 60 again.
This is what I would say is the minimum storage space needed to be able to do almost all missions (on level 29) in a reasonable amount of time. But having a storage of 330 is an epic task in itself and something that most people probably don't have; so you have to take shortcuts and only store what is absolutely necessary. Speed up tokens, Trade HQ and pre production are your options here.
Trade HQ
Know exactly which items and materials can be found there at any time. This is probably different depending on your level and the tme of the day you are usually playing but here are my rules.
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all factory materials except cloth and chemicals can always be found
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Cloth and Chemicals can be found but thay are rare. It is worth searching for them, but set up a production que just in case. Chemicals seems to be easier than Cloth.
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Easy items are: Chairs, Donuts, Vegetables, Grass, Home Textiles, Tables, Shoes, Caps, Ice Cream Sandwiches and Clocks.
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High end items like Pizzas, Smoothies and Cherry Cheescake can usually be found, at least in single quantities.
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Although you can find any other item it can't be done reliably so don't set up a plan that relies on finding one of these. But it's worth looking, especially if finding the item you need will speed up a mission considerably.
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Consider Ladders to be impossible to find. I don't even see one offered every week (and I spend a lot of time Trading). Only search for them if it is the final hour and you wont be able to complete a mission without finding one.
Pre production
Starting to produce items before you accept the mission really cuts down the storage space needed. You can start while doing another mission or start production while you are still looking for more stuff to produce all the items needed. Just be very careful so you don't accidentally collect an item before the mission has started (believe me, that really sucks! I lost six hours because of that). It might be good to have all your shops spread wide apart to prevent this. Also remember that you can switch between the shops when you have one selected, doing this makes it possible to add items to the queue without collecting the previous items.
Speed up tokens
If you have some pre production and some items already in storage it is usually enough to pop one silver token to have all the stuff you need in a reasonable amount of time. Save your gold tokens for when they are absolutely necessary, like seven Fire Pits which would take almost 24 hours to produce. Gold tokens can also be used when they make it possible to start another mission a lot earlier, like before bed time. Just don't overdo the last thing.
