I was just playing in slow mode watching my Sim, just provided with the basic clothes hampers, wash tub in the garden, additive, and clothesline suddenly deciding to go out into the garden to do her washing without prompting from me. The only thing I had to do, as she was taking some time over it, it was to stop her and tell her to put the washing on the line. Which she did.
I feel that if you don't provide too many other diversions in the house, that they tend to do better on their own, especially off the grid. This seems to follow Will Wright's axiom of just buying what you need that he used in The Sims original. He had lost many of his possessions in his house fire.