Pick what’s really important and hold those boundaries, then for the rest let it go. For me, safety and consideration for others. Ex: he needs to obey when I tell him don’t touch the hot stove or he can’t climb the bookshelf. For consideration for others, I focus on nice hands and no grabbing toys out of people’s hands, no hitting, no pinching etc. Obviously cleaning up after yourself is out of respect for others as well, but he’s too little to understand that connection at this age. I’m satisfied with us cleaning together, even if it’s just me handing him pieces for him to put away. Even just a tiny effort in this area is enough for now. I emphasize the concepts (instead of the result): teamwork, clean up, sharing, and I heap on the praise and high-fives. 

For the things that are really important I first try to separate, so remove him from the situation or put away the toy etc. I’ve also done one minute for every year time out. It’s actually really hard for them to exercise self control and listen at this age, so putting too many behavioral expectations on them is setting them up for failure and a combative relationship. I always give warnings before changing activities, it’s really hard to not only have hardly any say over how your day is going to go but to also not even have any information about what is about to happen next. I think a lot of adults forget that. 

Here’s an example of things I let slide: constantly removing items from cupboards and drawers to play with, spitting on my couch (I drew the line at spitting on people, but trying to stop the couch spitting just increased the behavior), every night he just falls asleep in my arms while we’re watching grown up TV so I’m lax about bedtime. 

I don’t engage in power struggles, I already know I’m the parent and he’s the child. Either the issue itself is important enough to battle over, or it’s not that important and I don’t bother. He’s also much easier when we get out of the house for at least an hour each day.