(NC) When we consider the work of keeping a home running, most of us think about the physical labour. But there’s a hidden layer underneath it that can create just as much strain: the thought around that labour. It takes real work to plan and coordinate all the things that have to get done in a given week—work that often goes unrecognized. Here’s how you can lessen that strain by putting some simple ideas into practice:

Have some tasks do themselves. Home appliances are getting smarter, and some can even take on some of your mental load by automating information. For instance, a smart fridge, like the one from Samsung’s Bespoke AI line, can scan items as you load them in. This lets the fridge keep an automatic inventory for you, and alert you when you’re low on something or when an item is about to expire.

Have a weekly family meeting. If you have more people in the household, it means more to manage, but it also means that they can help. Block out a convenient time once a week to sit down with your partner and any older children. As a group, discuss what’s important for that week and what chores need to get done. Assign the tasks, or have people volunteer if they have preferences. That way, everyone knows what they’re looking after, and the workload is spread out.

Get everyone on the same (web) page. There are shared apps you can use for tasks like grocery lists and calendar management. Having everyone in the household using these shared lists means they can add items themselves and easily check what’s needed. This cuts down on the amount you need to manage yourself, while giving kids a greater sense of ownership at home and a way to ease into more responsibility.

Make a to-do list of mental labour. Thinking about tasks is also its own task. It can be stressful to juggle priorities and keep everything straight in your head, on top of everything else you need to worry about. So don’t. Instead, take that work off of yourself by noting down the things that need to get thought, not done. Then you can delegate that thinking as required and focus on planning one thing at a time, without worrying about forgetting anything.

Let your home coordinate, too. The real mental labour-saving potential of a smart home is in its ecosystem: how the different devices communicate and coordinate. Using a system like Samsung’s SmartThings lets your home intuitively respond to you as a single environment, as opposed to a group of appliances to manage. That same smart fridge can use the system to suggest recipes for tonight’s supper based on what you have in stock, then send the cooking instructions to your oven.

Using your smart home app, you can control your home’s temperature remotely, check on timers for your laundry machine and dishwasher and even see what’s going on in the home. When the devices in your home work together to keep track of information, it frees up that much more mental space for you.

Running a home takes a lot of thought, but it can be much easier when the whole family—and the whole home—work together to get it done.