I turn to autonomy that is full, and just watch the family. I really only intervene when they step too out of bounds with my idea for this story. Autonomy works fine for me, if I first play while the ...
I always play with full autonomy, and often have played with controlling only one Sim in the household. This actually works in TS4 -- the other Sims will take care of their needs. They won't do much else, though. With the improvement of traits, it will be interesting to see if they'll do more.