For me, it depends on the importance of the event. If it's fancy or I need to make a good show of it, I'll plan ahead. But I usually slack off, because my shindigs aren't that fancy. My wife can't stop thinking about deadlines until the item is done, so she usually gets everything done well in advance. We're rubbing off on each other, as I'm getting better about planning and preparing, and she's starting to relax more when the issue isn't really all that critical.

I prepare some stock jokes and phrases, have my teeth whitened, make sure my outfit is fitted right and smile like a motherfucker.

Food family event hosting! Delegate delegate delegate. EVERYONE gets a job, and I can focus on strengths ( making sure everyone shows up, the pre prep, smiling like the aformentioned motherfucker)

I am seriously an advance planner. Kinda a la filthy light thief's wife.

Clean, like really clean all the gucky corners I rarely get to
Hide all things I own that would embarrass me if other people saw them
Plan menu
Make way too many things
Have leftovers for days

I do a lot of advance mental planning -- I usually do dinner parties, and I love menu planning, so I'll daydream about what I want to cook for days -- but the actual physical preparation is pretty similar to yours.

Though I'm envious of the "finish prepping a little too early" bit.

I just don't host events. Neither my wife or I are very good at such things so we just don't do them. I don't think that I've had a party since my 40th birthday in '04.

It's pretty much a once-in-a-decade-or-longer experience for me to have people over, but when I do I'm exactly like TPS.

I'm more like occhiblu. I'll plan an event in my head for months, research the food, brainstorm ideas, design an invite, maybe purchase some decorations but leave them in the bag, etc. No matter how much lead time I have, it seems the actual production of the event expands to absorb the time available, and I am rushing into the shower 30 minutes before the start time, covered with flour and drenched in sweat, praying nobody arrives early.

Oddly enough, events are a big part of my job and of my volunteer life. SOmehow those feel different from personal events and I manage them fine - mainly because I am aware that if I fuck those up, I let down my staff/co-volunteers. Whereas I'm free in my own time to totally punish myself with bad time management.

Don't know if it's universal, but as a perfectionist-planner, I tend to partner with more laidback types, even as friends/roommates, and so when I've hosted things just on my own, I'm all about getting things done early; when I've hosted things with partners or roommates who are all "Heeeey, it's fiiiiiiine" (many of whom were excellent hosts), I ended up behind schedule trying to let them do their thing.

I've kind of evolved a list of things that I feel should be done before guests arrive (bathroom cleaning, litterbox cleaning, basically anything involving feces) and things that could possibly be done in the presence of guests (setting the table, finishing cooking). Whatever my partner's issues, I try to get the feces-related stuff done well in advance, and then I try to chill out on the rest.

anything involving feces

Yeah, that really is the prime directive.