The Household Chores List: Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly

Most homes run on a chores list that only exists in someone's head. The trouble with that is not the cleaning, it's the remembering: the jobs that come round every few weeks or months are the ones that quietly get skipped until the oven is a project.

Below is a complete list, sorted by how often each job comes round. Use it to see the whole picture, then cut it down to what your home actually needs. A flat with no garden doesn't need the gutter section.

Daily chores

Keep the daily list short. Its job is to stop mess building up, not to clean the house.

• Wash up or load and run the dishwasher
• Wipe kitchen counters, the hob and the table after cooking
• Ten-minute tidy: put things back where they live
• Make the bed
• Deal with the post
• Feed and walk the pets, and clean up after them
• Take out rubbish if it's full

Weekly chores

The weekly list is the real cleaning. Splitting it by room makes it easier to share, and to own (more on that below).

• Kitchen: wipe appliance fronts and cupboard handles, clean the sink, clear out old food from the fridge, sweep and mop
• Bathroom: clean the toilet, sink, shower or bath and mirror, mop the floor, swap towels
• Living areas and bedrooms: vacuum, dust surfaces, change the bedsheets
• Laundry: wash, dry, fold and put away
• Rubbish and recycling: bins out on collection day
• Food: plan the week's meals and do the big shop
• Plants: water them

Monthly chores

• Clean the inside of the microwave and the fridge
• Descale the kettle and clean the coffee machine
• Run a cleaning cycle on the washing machine and dishwasher, and clear the filters
• Vacuum under the sofa and beds
• Wash bins and the recycling box
• Dust light fittings, skirting boards and fans
• Check smoke and carbon monoxide alarms
• Flea and worm treatment for pets, if that's their schedule
• Review shared spending and settle up

Every three to six months

• Deep clean the oven and hob
• Wash windows inside and out
• Flip or rotate the mattress, wash pillows and duvets
• Clean extractor fan filters and descale showerheads
• Clear out the freezer and the cupboard of mystery jars
• Declutter one area: wardrobes, the bathroom cabinet, the drawer everything goes in

Yearly chores

• Boiler or heating service
• Clear gutters and check the roof, if you have them
• Wash curtains and clean the carpets properly
• Check home and contents insurance, energy and broadband deals before they renew
• Car service and inspection
• Vaccinations and a check-up for pets
• Check passports and ID before anyone needs them

How to share the list between two people

A list this long makes one thing obvious: the work isn't only doing the jobs, it's knowing they're due. If one person carries the list, they carry most of the household even if the cleaning is split evenly. Three things help.

Own areas, not tasks."You own the kitchen and the bins, I own bathrooms and laundry" works better than trading individual jobs, because the owner also keeps track of when their jobs are due. Our guide to splitting chores fairly covers how to weigh jobs and trade on preference.

Make recurring jobs come back on their own.Anything on the monthly, quarterly or yearly list is easy to forget because it comes round so rarely. Set each one up once as a recurring task with its own schedule, so it reappears when it's due instead of when someone notices.

Keep the list where you both see it.A list on the fridge only works at home. A shared list on both phones means either of you can see what's due, tick it off, or add the thing you just noticed. More on why that matters in our piece on the mental load.

Doing this in Homeful

Homeful's chores and to-dos are one list shared between your phones. Assign each job to one of you, set recurring jobs to come back on their own schedule, and tick them off when they're done so the other person knows. Start with the daily and weekly lists, then add the monthly and yearly jobs as recurring tasks once, and stop thinking about them.