Your Complete Home Cleaning Schedule: What to Clean Weekly, Monthly, and Seasonally

Knowing what to clean and when is half the battle when it comes to keeping your home tidy—which is where our handy checklists come in.

Madeline Buiano is an editor at MarthaStewart.com, sharing her knowledge on a range of topics—from gardening and cleaning to home.

There's no better feeling than stepping into a spotless, clean home. But with a full work schedule and busy weekends, it can be difficult to keep a cleaning routine that keeps your space feeling tidy. Enter our comprehensive home cleaning schedule. By breaking down housework into manageable tasks sorted by day, week, month, season, and year, you can put cleaning on autopilot. This means you'll never waste time wondering where to begin—or be caught off guard by a seasonal task that crept up on you. While that once-a-year deep clean is a rite of passage, for a more long-tail approach, our complete checklists tell you what you should be doing—and when to do it.

Daily Cleaning Checklist

Just a few minutes of daily cleaning can make a huge difference when it comes to how your home looks and feels. Plus, it keeps messes at bay so they don't become bigger headaches down the road. For daily cleaning, think about things you can tidy up from the waistline down, like your floors and countertops. This is especially important in the kitchen, where food-contact surfaces that aren't cleaned every day can harbor and spread germs that cause food-borne illness, says Mary Gagliardi, in-house scientist and cleaning expert for Clorox.

• Make the bed
• Wipe down kitchen counters
• Sanitize high-touch surfaces
• Wipe down bathroom counters
• Sweep floors
• Clean dirty dishes
• Put away clothes
  

Weekly Cleaning Checklist

Just like daily cleaning, weekly home maintenance chores prevent your home from building up with dust, dirt, pet dander, and general mess. "Areas to tend to weekly are still your more high-traffic areas and most commonly used rooms," says Melissa Poepping, founder of The Chemical Free Home. Some of these spots might be taken care of daily, but they should be on your weekly cleaning list, too, since they can't wait a full month for more in-depth attention.

• Change and launder bath mats, towels, and washcloths
• Clean toilets, bathtubs, showers, and sinks
• Dust surfaces, including furniture, objects, and light fixtures
• Empty trash bins and wipe the insides and outsides
• Vacuum and mop floors
• Vacuum upholstery
• Wipe mirrors
• Change and launder sheets and pillowcases
• Discard magazines and catalogs; store those you want to keep
• Fluff pillows and comforters
• Launder machine-washable throw rugs and runners
• Sort through inboxes: pay bills, file paid bills, and paperwork
• Flush the kitchen drain with boiling water
• Wipe kitchen counters, sink, ventilation hood, refrigerator, and cupboard doors
• Wipe the inside of the oven, microwave, and toaster oven
• Wipe hand and pet prints from windows and glass doors

Monthly Cleaning Checklist

Monthly cleaning is your chance to tidy the sometimes neglected, but frequently used areas of your home. "Once each month, dive deeper into the out-of-sight, out-of-mind areas that, if left unattended, become laborious [to clean] or even shorten the life of some of your household items," says Poepping. Also use this time to examine upholstered furniture for stains, so you can tend to them and keep your items looking new, she adds.

• Scrub grout
• Wipe insides of medicine cabinets
• Wipe tub and shower surrounds
• Launder pillow protectors, mattress pads, and shams
• Dust shelves and storage bins
• Vacuum floors and baseboards
• Discard food in the freezer that's past its prime
• Wash ventilation hood filters
• Vacuum fireplace screen
• Wipe insides and outsides of trash and recycling bins
• Buff waxed stone, masonry, concrete, and wood floors
• Dust portable and ceiling fans
• Flush drains with vinegar, boiling water, and baking soda
• Vacuum window treatments, moldings, and windowsills
• Wipe interior and exterior doors and trim
• Wipe switch plates
• Wipe telephones

Seasonal Cleaning Checklist

Making a seasonal cleaning checklist is critical for keeping your home in tip-top shape. "This is where you think 'floor to ceiling, and everything in between,'" says Gagliardi. "Semi-annual or seasonal cleaning is going to put the focus on your major appliances, help you to catch any potential issues, and prolong their life."

• Launder pillows
• Turn mattresses
• Vacuum mattresses, box springs, and bed frames
• Clean hanging pot rack and polish copper cookware
• Deep clean oven
• Organize and wipe down pantry
• Remove contents of kitchen cabinets and wipe clean
• Discard expired food items
• Wipe kitchen ceiling
• Wipe the inside of the refrigerator
• Rotate stacked books to prevent warping
• Clean leather furniture
• Sweep out fireplace
• Clean baseboards and moldings
• Wash filter on washing machine
• Swap out seasonal clothes and store what is no longer needed
• Donate old clothes
• Clean out makeup drawer and throw away expired items
• Clean shower heads and faucet filters
• Vacuum and mop floors
  

Annual Cleaning Checklist

Some areas of your home are a major undertaking to clean—and you likely won't have time to tend to them after work or in between weekend errands. However, these chores shouldn't be neglected entirely, since failing to clean things like your gutters or air vents can create bigger issues down the road. "Every surface eventually needs a good cleaning," says Gagliardi. "But for hard-to-clean spaces that take a lot of time to deal with, it's reasonable to wait and [handle] them just once a year."

• Remove contents of kitchen cabinets and clean interiors
• Remove contents of food pantry and clean interiors
• Throw away expired food items
• Deep clean oven
• Deep clean refrigerator and freezer
• Clean the water tray and filter on the refrigerator
• Clean out garage; donate items you no longer use
• Clean gutters
• Dust air vents; have a professional inspect air ducts
• Clean behind large appliances
• Have upholstery and window treatments professionally cleaned
• Vacuum and mop floors