I am a bit obsessed with organizing. I drive Mike nuts because I’m always “organizing his stuff away”. I try to go through one area of the boat at least once a week, reorganizing and tossing things we no longer need.  On a boat there is not much space for any unimportant items.

Our “garage” is the guest bed, there are boxes of tools in our bedroom, and food and spare parts under our bed. As I’m writing this I’m sitting next to a pillow filled with spare blankets. We’re surrounded by our stuff! Living in a house it was easy to put stuff out in the garage or into a closet. No need to look at it day in and day out.

The garage

When we lived on land we had a vacuum to keep the carpet clean and a big mop-like sweeper to keep hardwood floors clean. But what to do on a small boat with not much floor space and varying availability of electricity? You buy smaller versions of the same items – either rechargeable or 12 volt – the best is to have both!

Our boat came with a rather large upright rechargeable vacuum. Our first thought was to get rid of the thing. Mike already had it sitting on the dock to sell or give away. I brought it back aboard to vacuum the rugs and it hasn’t left since. I use it everyday to sweep up and am grateful I kept it. So much easier than crawling around on the floor. The best part is that a little handhelp pops out to reach small spaces!

There are larger items than the vacuum on board, but this is the biggest item that we really could do without.

Do you need some help getting organized? I use the SPACE formula when I organize. To learn more about organizing check out books by the organizing expert who came up with this.

S – Sort – make piles of like items
P – Purge – get rid of what you don’t need
A – Assign – assign every item a “home”
C – Containerize – use drawers or bins to keep like with like
E – Equalize – take 5-10 minutes every day to maintain

This post was written as part of a blog-hop. Visit the Monkey’s Fist website for posts about this topic written by other cruisers or check out these topics:  

 Why do we Cruise
Relationships Aboard
Pink and Blue Jobs Aboard
Provisioning
Fear
Swag and Approaching the Natives
Clothes and Laundry