52 Week Cleaning Schedule: One Deep Job a Week

By Planning editorial team · Updated November 1, 2026

Daily and weekly cleaning keeps a home running. It does not stop the slow build-up in the places you only see when you move the sofa: the oven door, the dishwasher filter, the mattress, the cupboard under the sink. Those are the jobs that get done in a rush before visitors, or never. A 52 week cleaning schedule gives each of them a week, so over a year every part of the home gets its turn without a single marathon weekend.

How a 52 week schedule works

The idea is simple. You already have a daily and weekly routine. The rotation adds one deeper job a week, picked in advance, with a time estimate. You do it on a fixed day, you tick it and you move on.

The version in the Homekeel set is called The 52-Week Rotation, and it comes with the planner. A few design decisions are worth copying whatever you use.

1. No dates. You start at week 1 today, or in the quarter that matches the season you are in. Nothing falls behind because there are no dates to fall behind on.
2. Quarters, not months. Quarter names are used, so the rotation works in the northern and southern hemispheres. Each quarter page says when it fits best.
3. A time next to every job. If you only have ten minutes, start it, note where you stopped and finish next week.
4. A rule for missed weeks. Do not catch up. Carry on with the next week.

The four quarters

Quarter 1: Fresh Start (weeks 1 to 13)

Kitchen, bathroom and glass: the jobs that make everything else feel lighter. It is the spring-clean quarter in the north (March to May) and September to November in Australia and New Zealand. The list starts with the oven (60 min), the fridge (45), the freezer (45), kitchen cupboards (40), the dishwasher filter and seal (30), the washing machine drum, seal, drawer and filter (30), descaling taps and shower head (30), bathroom grout and sealant (45), the bathroom cabinet (30), inside windows on the ground floor (45), window tracks and sills (30), curtains or blinds (45) and light fittings and ceiling corners (30). Average: about 39 minutes a week.

Quarter 2: Open Up (weeks 14 to 26)

Beds, floors and the jobs that disappear under furniture. Mattress (30), duvet and pillows (45), one wardrobe section (45), under the beds (30), skirting boards (40), doors and handles (30), light switch and socket plates with a dry or barely damp cloth only (20), the sofa (40), rugs (45), a deep clean of carpets or hard floors (60), radiators and vents (30), bookshelves and the TV unit (40) and the entry shoe rack, hooks and mat (30). Average: about 37 minutes.

Quarter 3: Settle In (weeks 27 to 39)

Outside, storage and the kit that does the cleaning. Garden or balcony furniture, outdoor bins, reachable outside windows, drains, the cupboard under the sink (clear, wipe, check for damp), the pantry (check dates, wipe shelves), spice drawer and baking shelf, small appliances, the coffee machine and blender, food containers and lids, the laundry area, mop heads and cloths with a restock of the cleaning caddy, and the home office. This is the lightest quarter at about 32 minutes a week.

Quarter 4: Cosy (weeks 40 to 52)

Home for the colder months, plus the paperwork and the year review. Rotate the kids' toys and donate outgrown ones, wash soft toys, sort coats, boots and gloves, wash and store spare bedding, shred, file and scan paperwork, a digital tidy of photos, files and backups, refresh the spare room, check the medicine cabinet and take expired items to a pharmacy, wipe and store the off-season decor, the hall cupboard, the car interior, one photo or keepsake box, and in week 52 a year review: what to keep, change or drop. Average: about 37 minutes.

What it adds up to

Across the year the four quarters total roughly 8.4, 8.1, 6.9 and 7.9 hours of job time according to the estimates in the rotation. That is about two working days, spread over 52 weeks, in return for a home where the oven, the filters and the cupboards never reach the stage where you dread them.

Using it with your weekly routine

The 52-week rotation sits on top of the day pages, not instead of them. A practical way to combine them:

• Pick a fixed day. Saturday morning is common. Many people use a Steady or Deep day.
• Look at your size. If today is a Sprint, do not start the 60-minute oven. Use the "quick wins when you only have 15 minutes" list instead: dishwasher filter (week 5), descale taps (7), switch plates (20), check drains (30), lids and tubs (36), mop heads and cloths (38), decor wipe (48) and the year review (52).
• Plan the long ones. The oven in week 1 and the carpets or hard floors in week 23 are the 60-minute jobs. Put them on a Deep day.

If you want the weekly structure first, see the weekly cleaning schedule, and for what every room needs day to day, the room-by-room checklist.

Find a job by room

If you want to bring something forward, there is a table showing which weeks touch each part of the home. Kitchen is weeks 1 to 6 and 31 to 36, bathrooms 7 to 9, windows and glass 10 to 12 and 29, bedrooms 14 to 17, 40 to 43 and 46, living areas 21, 22 and 25, floors 18 and 22 to 23, entry and hall 26 and 49, laundry 6, 37, 38 and 41, office and paperwork 39, 44 and 45, outdoors and car 27 to 30 and 50, and planning 52. Having a job list by room is also useful when guests are coming and you want to do the visible ones first.

When life gets in the way

A schedule that breaks when you miss a week is not a schedule you will keep. The rotation includes a Swap and Catch-up page.

Missed a week?

1. Skip it. Do not stack two jobs in one week.
2. Write the skipped week number in the box.
3. Do it in a banked week or at the end of the quarter.

Quiet week?

1. Do the next job early and tick it.
2. Tick one banked week on the year page.
3. Use it when a busy week comes.

There is also a swap list: if a job does not apply, because you have no garden or no car, replace it with something that does. This is the same idea as the Reset Week in the main planner, which is about restarting from where you are. The page on the three-size cleaning schedule explains how that mindset runs through the whole system.

Build your own

If you would rather make your own 52 week list, here is a short method.

1. List the jobs you avoid. Oven, fridge, mattress, windows. Write them down.
2. Add the invisible ones. Dishwasher filter, washing machine seal, lint areas, sockets and switches.
3. Group by season. Put outdoor and window jobs in the lighter months and bedding and paperwork in the colder ones.
4. Put a time against each. Round to 15 minutes if you must.
5. Keep one blank per quarter. An empty week is a buffer for life.
6. Print it undated.

It takes an evening, and then it runs for a year.

Why one job a week feels so different

A deep clean usually means a whole day, and a whole day is hard to find, so it does not happen. One 30 to 45 minute job a week is small enough to fit inside a normal Saturday. The year review at week 52 asks what to keep, change or drop, which means the system improves as it goes. Over twelve months, the oven stops being a once-a-year horror, the fridge stays something you can open without flinching, and you are not the person who discovers a damp cupboard under the sink in February.

To see how this connects to the main system, read what a printable cleaning planner includes. The 52-Week Rotation is one of six bonuses that come with the Homekeel Cleaning Planner.