I might just be really dumb, but how do I know if the villagers are done doing their thing? I keep having to go in circles to get the woodcutters to mine through the forest because they only mine 1/3 at a time.
That's normal. Basically they do their thing every time you move and gave them orders. The woodcutters don't cut down a whole forest in one go, they need a few days of work (but also that means you get more wood out of it).
So how am I supposed to get past this huge forest, spanning multiple tiles, without dying to the void? Is it just an issue of getting there early enough?