The succession of events that culminates in the asexual reproduction of a cell; also known as cell division cycle. In a typical cell cycle, the parent cell doubles its volume, mass, and complement of chromosomes, then sorts its doubled contents to opposite sides of the cell, and finally divides in half to yield two genetically identical offspring. Implicit in the term cycle is the idea that division brings the double-sized parent cell back to its original size and chromosome number, and ready to begin another cell cycle. This idea fits well with the behavior of many unicellular organisms, but for multicellular organisms the daughter cells may differ from their parent cell and from each other in terms of size, shape, and differentiation state.