Come Thanksgiving morning, hosts and hostesses should be focusing on the meal and its timing. Not the wrinkled tablecloth. Not the messy bathroom. Not the missing gravy bowl.

For the time-crunched, that means planning ahead, setting priorities and mastering some shortcuts.

Who doesn't love shortcuts?

Just as it is smart to whip up as many side dishes ahead of time as you possibly can, there are other ways to make Thanksgiving less stressful around the house.

For starters, focus more on the gathering -- is there adequate seating for guests? -- and less on such things as a messy closet or desk no one will see.

"Don't worry about things that are not holiday-related. The week before Thanksgiving is not the time to deal with your filing system. Cut yourself some slack and make it one of your New Year's resolutions," said Jamie Shaner, who runs a local organizing, home staging and downsizing business called Home Solutions of WNY, with business partner Lynn Clark.

"You don't need the extra pressure of dealing with all those behind-the-scenes things right now," she said.

As for last-minute housecleaning, "deal with the public areas and make them presentable," she said.

If you have more than one bathroom, make your cleaning priority the one guests will be using, for example.

Another tip: "I walk through my space and look at it through other people's eyes. What are they going to see when they walk into this room?" Shaner said.

"The way you live in your house and the way you present it for entertaining might be two different things," she said.

"So while a pile of newspapers on the coffee table is not necessarily a messy or bad thing, maybe you don't want the papers sitting there when company comes," Shaner said.

And that afghan wadded up in a ball at the end of the couch?

"Fold it and drape it more decoratively," she said.

Depending on who is on the guest list, think ahead about what they can do before dinner.

Consider assigning tasks (pouring ice water at the table, for instance). Some guests, such as grandparents or out-of-town relatives, may get a kick out of looking at old photo albums, so retrieve some beforehand. Young children can enjoy drawing with crayons at a table covered with brown craft paper.

Whether you'll be serving eight or 28, here are a few other tips:

• This bears repeating: Set the table the night or day before Thanksgiving. No one wants to be ironing table cloths or digging out platters Thanksgiving morning. If you can't free up the table, at least set out all the dishes and utensils and cover with a clean dish towels or a cloth.

Get a jump start this weekend by retrieving table leaves, cleaning and filling salt and pepper shakers, polishing silver, hauling out -- or borrowing, if need be -- serving pieces, including that all-important gravy boat.

• Since people tend to turn to the same menu and favorite recipes year-after-year, Shaner recommends computerizing your shopping list for all holiday meals, especially Thanksgiving, and then printing it out when it's time to shop.

"This way you won't forget the marshmallows for the fruit salad or the whipped cream for the pumpkin pie -- items you don't always have in the house," she said.

•  Create a "holding place" for items you went to temporarily set aside. It can be in a basement, bedroom, closet, anywhere that works for you. Clear counters, coffee tables and other surfaces of items you won't be needing and store them there. A central holding place eliminates the last-minute urge to jam things here and there throughout the house.
•  
• This from Better Homes and Gardens: Beat the Thanksgiving (and other holiday) rush. Shop for soft drinks, nonperishables, aluminum foil and plastic wrap early.

• Write down your entire menu and hang in a place you will see it.
•  
• A day or two before Thanksgiving, designate a place for guests' coats, handbags, etc. Clear out a front hall closet and add plenty of sturdy hangers or free up a bed or other spot. Winter holidays will likely call for some sort of boot tray.

• When Thanksgiving Day arrives, remember, too, that it's ideal to have an empty dishwasher and a sink clear of dirty pots and pots before sitting down to the meal.

•  Have plenty of clean dish towels on hand. And, after the feast, if someone asks to help wash and dry dishes, let them, advise the editors at Martha Stewart:

"Don't be the martyr; don't insist you have a 'system' -- just let them dry dishes. If it's distracting for you to wash and direct people as to where exactly the gravy boat goes, clear a place on the table for dried dishes. You can put them away later," they write.

You may even want an extra apron or two on hand.