I recently came across the term “domestic engineer” and I love how it captures the way our living can be structured to construct a happier home. I use “lazy homemaker” in the Bill Gates way - “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

I dislike housekeeping, but I also want our house to feel like a reasonably clean, welcoming home. I realized there are lots of ways that our place or routines are structured that demand more time be spent on upkeep. For example, my husband likes to rotate between different dress shoes and we also have a no shoe in the house policy. Our shoe bench was constantly full of his shoes and I would get so annoyed moving his shoes back into our master bedroom closet every time we had company over or I would trip on them. A few months ago, I moved the shoe rack into the hallway closet so I can tidy faster. I’m trying to find more easy wins like this so I spend less time on something I find so tedious.

What are your best tips for domestic engineering to minimize workload? +1 for tips that are low cost, -1 for tips that are environmentally unfriendly (like paper plates, which are great in a pinch but seem irresponsible long-term)