Get ready provinces, get some blacksmiths on 24hour productions, don't collect your tavern, don't aid until daily challenge comes out, etc.
Actually, I'd suggest
not doing anything for provinces unless you need to for an event. Inno got this one right, at least to my mind, so they won't ask you to take sectors if you have none currently available in any province.
And while I generally agree with your point about not doing anything until you've started your Daily Challenges, I have to wonder whether DCs are going to ultimately encourage a counter-intuitive/counter-productive play style where the object becomes
not doing things when you'd like to. Don't visit taverns just because it's been 24 hours, wait and visit them after the DC comes out. Same thing for Aiding. Don't spend tavern silver until the new DC starts. Don't do battles (and by extension, at least consider not advancing on the map or in GE, etc.) until the new DC starts. Heck, even things like the requests for multiple productions will significantly impair any quest-looping you might be doing or at least help the game earn the oft-repeated name of "Forge of Blacksmiths".
While I've been doing them on Beta for the last few months, now that I have DCs in all of my cities, I'm seriously beginning to wonder if they may be more trouble than they're worth, at least for some cities/play styles. For now, I'm doing those that aren't too troublesome, but I have a feeling that's going to change at some point. I never thought DCs were ready for prime time when they were on Beta, and I still agree with that assessment now that they're on live.