How I Put My Home on Autopilot With Technology

As a professional organizer, I spend a lot of time thinking about
systems. Not just where things live in a drawer, but how a home
actually runs day to day. We all make dozens of little decisions every
day. I love finding ways to eliminate some of those decisions by
creating systems that do the thinking for me.

Over time, I’ve handed off some of the repetitive, predictable tasks
in my home to technology. Nothing complicated or overly fancy, just a
few simple systems that run in the background and make life a little
easier. Here’s what I’ve done:

1. Schedule deliveries for things I consistently run out of.

If I buy something on a predictable cycle, I don’t need to remember to
buy it. I just need to set it up once and let it happen. One of those
things for me is dog food. My dogs go through a bag roughly every six
weeks, so I set up a recurring delivery on that schedule. It just
shows up.

2. Create calendar reminders for small, recurring tasks.

Sometimes I don’t need a system to do something for me, I just need a
little nudge to do it before it becomes a bigger problem. I have a
weekly recurring calendar reminder for a quick fridge check where I
toss expired leftovers, wipe up spills, and get a quick look at what
needs to be used before it goes bad. It takes almost no time, but
without the reminder, it’s exactly the kind of task I would forget.

I do try to keep these reminders to a minimum. If I put too many tasks
on my calendar, they start piling up, and eventually I will ignore all
of them.

3. Put my robot vacuum on a schedule.

I used to think naming a robot vacuum was silly…until I got one. Now
“Amelia Bedelia” cleans my floors every Tuesday and Friday, whether I
remember to ask her to or not. She just shows up and gets the job
done. There’s nothing quite like coming home to clean floors!

4. Use shared digital lists.

The most used technology in my house isn’t fancy at all. It’s a shared
grocery list in my Notes app. Anyone in the house can add to it the
moment they notice we’re out of something. We’ve tried the “fancier”
apps, but we always come back to this simple system. It works because
everyone knows where the list is and adding something takes about five
seconds.

Nothing here is complicated, and that’s exactly how I want it. The
goal isn’t to automate my entire home, but rather to identify the
repetitive things I don’t need to spend mental energy on and let
technology handle them for me.