How do you avoid the hassle of getting everything to come out at one time?

PLANNING!

• Menu planning, if you plan a menu that requires six things to be done at the last minute then you'd better have six cooks to do it! Since we both know you don't have six cooks in your house, write a better menu.
  
  
• If you have a dish or two that are special in your family and they require a lot of attention, make the rest of the meal simple, even to the point that you "subcontract" some of the meal out to the supermarket! There are lots of convenience foods out there that are pretty good. Bakery breads and rolls, salads of all sorts, pre-cut vegetables, even cheese platters and boiled shrimp plates.
  
  
• Know something about the food you're preparing, a roast needs time to sit on the counter to equalize the internal temperatures and for the juices to stop moving, so cook the roast early and let it sit in a warm spot.
  
  
• Mise en place: One of the first terms you learn in cooking school, means to put in place, in other words get your ingredients ready before you start to cook just like they do on the cooking shows.
  
  
• Pre-cook! When you eat in a restaurant that vegetable you eat was prepped in the slow hours of the afternoon, the sauces were made when the time was available and kept in a steam table. Ok so you don't have a steam table, do you have a microwave? Then cook the veggies early, chill them and microwave them to heat them up in time for the meal.