okay so i know this will be alittle complicated and probably tricky to implement but ultimately i think it will be worthwhile.
Firstly i would start with a new station called “Stewards Desk” or similar and it works like a wheel of pain for thralls you have already converted.
if you put a fighter, smelter or any other type of thrall into this station they will be converted to a household thrall.
a tier 1 fighter will become a tier 1 household thrall and a tier 3 will become a tier 3 household thrall. with the different tiers determining the speed with which the tasks are performed.
Taskmasters are the exception and rather than becoming Household Thralls they become Stewards and speed up the Stewards Desk.
these thralls can be assigned to certain tasks.
for example a household thrall can be assigned to an elevator. once assigned, that elevator will not work for anyone outside of your clan or it will only work for you depending on the rules you set.
these thralls can be assigned to a drawbridge so it will be raised when the player leaves the area and lowered again when the player approaches.
other rules can be set up like all putrid meat is disposed of or placed in a compost heap. Tar is immediately removed from the tannery and placed in a chest allocated for Tar.
the ideal would be, if a player returns from adventuring they have a “dump chest” where they place everything and the household thrall assigned to that container will sort them and place the items in containers they belong to.
the tier of thrall will determine how fast that happens.
the way i would do this is to add a slot for a household thrall in all containers aswell as elevators/drawbridges and the compost heap. then place a thrall in that slot.
to prevent “Thrall Clutter” by having a thrall standing next to all these containers i would not have them visible with the possible exception of a thrall standing by the drawbridge.
then assign an item or material to that container and all of that material within an area will slowly be moved the container it is assigned to.
examples:
as Tar is produced in a tannery it is moved to a container near your Alchemist ready to be turned into steelfire.
cooked food or fish collected in your fish traps are immediately moved to a preservation box to be dealt with later.
Steel Supports, Hardened Brick and Shaped wood all moved to a single chest so all building materials are stored together automatically.
note, while this will be complicated as it is to implement and may require a whole reworking of the game to get right i think it will cut down on base “Busy work” and allow players to spend more time farming and adventuring.
it also gives that tier 1 smelter i captured when i was level 20 something to do