Simplify your home like a yacht stewardess

With another new year approaching, most of us have hopes and dreams of becoming healthier and happier in 2018. It seems like every year we start off strong; join a gym, eat more salads, throw some junk. But no matter how determined we are, our busy lives accumulate a pile of mail and papers on the counter, and our visits to the gym become shorter and less frequent. Sometimes being surrounded by “stuff” and not feeling organized can be demotivating and suck up our precious time.

That is why this year, perhaps we should focus on decluttering and organizing the space in which we spend most of our time. Having a clean, clutter-free space can be motivating in and of itself. I’m not necessarily talking about minimalism, so don’t go just yet. I mean creating a home that is an escape rather than a long to-do list. This year, why not try organizing your home like the queens of organization and dream-worthy living spaces, yacht stewardesses?

Imagine if your house often moved and rolled like a boat. Imagine the mess; broken dishes, piles of paper scattered on the floor, overturned bottles of cleaning products and spilled makeup that stains the carpet. On a yacht, if the stewardesses have done their job, everything will be safe and comfortable in your home and any decoration belonging to a table is packed between pillows or safely secured. Of course, your home isn’t likely to move like a yacht, but applying a few of the techniques that flight attendants use can help declutter and organize your home in no time.

Let’s start with the most visited closet of yacht hostesses, the cleaning closet. When cleaning the interior rooms of a yacht, stewardesses are responsible for expensive and delicate surfaces. To protect these surfaces from leaking bottles that could damage the finish, they use cleaning carts to hold all their cleaning supplies. A cleaning cart also helps with organization and efficiency.

By having one of each cleaning product for surfaces in your home, along with any rags or dusters, you can just grab and go. There is no need to make several trips to the different places in your house where the window cleaner might be. You may not need Q-tips, toothpicks, or toothbrushes to clean like hostesses, but adopting the cleaning cart is a key organizational hack to adopt in 2018.

So you’ve got the cleaning caddy, but what about the seldom-used bottle of leather conditioner or the extra bottles of toilet bowl cleaner that come in the four-pack? Yachts also have extras of everything, especially when traveling to remote locations. Ideally, you want to keep all of your extra cleaning supplies in the same place, organized so that you can see what you have by looking and not digging. That way, if it’s not in the designated cleaning area, then there isn’t one in the house and you’ll need to buy it.

Another way yacht managers stay organized is to have a home for everything. There are a couple of reasons for this. One reason is that if a flight attendant or other crew member needs to use the vacuum, she can immediately find it at her designated home. Another reason goes back to the rolling ship on the high seas. It would be hard to relax without knowing that the hoover may or may not be safe where it is today, while if you have a home it only takes one trip to know if the holy hoover will be safe for all the journeys to come.

Apply this practice with everything possible in your home for easy accessibility. Never rummage around your house for twenty minutes looking for scissors or keys. Have a home for everything and you will never lose anything. This is especially useful for documents, mail, and other paperwork you may have around the house. A simple filing system of your choice is all you need to free up that counter space drowning in ‘important’ papers you don’t really use, but shouldn’t throw away.

That is why we have talked about cleaning supplies and other household items that a household has. Let’s get to where a lot of people really struggle, the bedroom. Yacht crew cabins are very small. And most crew members only have one or two small drawers and a miniature closet for all their personal belongings, including clothes, shoes, makeup, books, electronics, etc.

Of course, since you live in a house, you have a little more space that normally contains a lot more things. Most of us have heard of the six month rule; if you haven’t used it or haven’t used it in six months, throw it away. That’s one way to rid your closet of extra clothes you don’t need, but sometimes that’s not enough.

Living in northern Michigan, I’ve found that this rule doesn’t really apply to many people who live in areas with hot summers and cold winters. Of course I haven’t worn half my wardrobe in six months, because it would be crazy to wear a bikini during a snowy winter.

Another way to declutter your closet is to categorize your clothes by type or style and eliminate multiples. If you have eight pairs of jeans, choose your two favorites and donate the other six. A yacht stew lives out of a large backpack or a small suitcase. Try to reduce your wardrobe to maybe two suitcases.

You will have less clothes, but also less stress when choosing what to wear. Keep the basics and ditch the trendy pieces that will quickly go out of style. Of course, style and clothing are some people’s hobby or identity, so this type of cleanliness won’t resonate with everyone.

Another cleansing technique is to get rid of makeup and bath and body products, or simply not buy more until you’ve used up what you already have. A yacht crew shower is big enough to stand up and that’s about it, it’s pretty hard to shave your legs inside one. Having multiple bottles of shampoos, body washes, scrubs, conditioners, and shaving creams is simply not an option.

Using a technique similar to the system of extra cleaning supplies can greatly reduce the number of bottles in the shower. Keep one of each staple in the shower, while putting all the extras in a closet for future use. And don’t buy more until you need it. This will save you money if you actually use what you have, instead of buying new products all the time and throwing out half-used bottles to make more space.

For makeup, nail polish, and other small items you have in abundance, get makeup bags. A yacht stewardess may or may not have a medicine cabinet in her shared bathroom. Being able to grab a small bag with all your makeup for the day is ideal. This will prevent your makeup from getting lost or damaged too as it will stay safe in your home bag.

Some other tips to simplify your home:

-Buy cleaning products that can be used safely on multiple surfaces.

-Buy body products that can be used for more than one body part.

Example: I use Dr. Bronner’s soap for my hair, face, body, and shaving.

-If something is broken, fix it or throw it away.

-Go paperless, reduce mail. Most companies offer paperless notifications by email.

-Simplify your beauty routine. Find the products that really work and stick with them. Trying new products all the time costs money and adds extra bottles to your shrinking space.