There are no tips that will ever work. From my own personal experience no matter what time Shabbos starts I will always be running aproximately 15 minutes late. A friend told me that he was in England or Russia or one of those weird countries and Shabbos came in at around 10pm and people were STILL rushing around trying to be ready on time.
Your only choice is to be mekabel on yourself to make Shabbos at Chatzos this way you’ll be ready by 12:15. I think there’s some program for that.
Otherwise just give up. I think I can confidently say that at this point its minhag Yisroel. It makes me feel better anyway.