There is no single right answer, but there is a wrong one: the schedule that assumes every room needs the same attention. Kitchens and bathrooms generate mess continuously; a spare bedroom does not. Frequency should follow use.
Daily — ten minutes, not an hour
- Kitchen counters and sink cleared after the last meal
- Dishes done or loaded
- One quick pass picking things up off the floor
- Bathroom sink wiped
The point of the daily pass is not cleanliness, it is preventing the weekly clean from becoming a project.
Weekly
- Bathrooms sanitised — toilet, shower, tub, mirrors
- All floors vacuumed and mopped
- Kitchen appliance exteriors and cooktop
- Dusting of reachable surfaces
- Bed linens changed
Monthly
- Inside the microwave
- Baseboards and door frames
- Light fittings and ceiling fans
- Interior window glass
- Under and behind movable furniture
Twice a year
- Inside the oven and fridge
- Grout scrubbed throughout
- Upholstery and mattresses vacuumed
- Vent covers washed
- Window tracks and exterior glass
Adjust for how you actually live
Pets push vacuuming from weekly to every two or three days and move the deep clean to quarterly. Small children do much the same to bathrooms and floors. Cooking from scratch every night means the cooktop and extractor need monthly rather than twice-yearly attention. Allergies push dusting and bed linens to twice weekly.
A schedule you follow at seventy per cent beats a perfect one you abandon in three weeks.
Where a cleaner fits
The usual split that works: you handle the daily ten minutes, a cleaner handles weekly or biweekly, and the twice-yearly deep clean gets booked rather than attempted. That keeps the ongoing cost low and removes exactly the jobs people put off.