Whoever thought you just fall pregnant, have a lovely glow and a bump to show off and 9 months later you have babies is sadly mistaken.

that would be me, by the way

Having babies involves serious project management and LOADS of decisions.

• which pram?
• which car seats?
• do we want one cot or two?
• who will deliver them?
• at which hospital?
• what about classes to show us what to do?
• what do we buy?
• can you be a minimalist
• how do you sort out the babies’ room?
• etc
• etc

The list seriously goes on and on and I’ve been threatening to do a master to-do list although it felt a bit…I don’t know… cold when you think these are BABIES.

Nevertheless, I realised something had to be done because people would ask me things and I’d say “I don’t know” or “haven’t thought about it yet”, which gets old really quickly.

So I caved and used one of my master to-do lists in the Organising Success Pack

And do you know what? It’s not as bad as I thought.

There were only 16 items on there.

Which reinforces what I always tell my clients – write it down; it’s usually much worse in your head than on paper

Do you use master to-do lists? How do you keep tasks on big projects organised in your mind?

This ecourse will take you, step-by-step, from overwhelm to peace and order. There are short lessons and practical steps because I know you already don’t have time! You also get a quickstart 60-minute audio to jump-start your progress.

Check it out now

This is all part of Project Baby Organising.

I know this intellectually but every time I see it in practice in my own life I’m reminded anew of how easy it is to declutter once you get started.

What I’m doing is decluttering each of those shelves and clearing up space for some guest linen as this room will be doubling as a guest room on the one or two occasions we have people to stay every year.

Please notice I cropped out the right side of the wardrobe because my husband and I have that agreement.

Anyway, back to the topic.

I came across my old diaries/ daily planners from about 2002. I don’t know why exactly I was hanging onto them…but I was.

Now they’re all thrown out. Except for last year’s one because I may want to access some information in there.

So, do you keep your old diaries/ daily planners? How long?

And by the way, what do you call them in your side of the world? In South Africa we call them diaries and we diarise our appointments

So project baby organising continues.

I had 3 shelves of files that I had to declutter to make way for the guest linen.

The way I see it is that if I haven’t even looked at these files once in the last 18 – 24 months, I probably don’t need it.

That was mostly true because some things were certificates from courses I’d attended, income tax records, etc.

When I got started, I must tell you I thought I wouldn’t be up for it, because I’d forgotten that things always look worse just before they get better.

This was all the paper I decluttered from the files

End result

• 2 1/2 empty shelves – yayy!
• 1/2 shelf of computer software and back-up discs all together in one space, not spread out in 3 different areas of the study
• Empty files that will go to a needy school in Johannesburg

No pics of final shelves because my husband’s stuff is there and we have a rule – no blogging about his mess

I’m fast realising that not everybody thinks like me.

Well, I’ve known that for a long, long time but this baby business has made the whole thing glaringly obvious once again.

Let me tell you what’s been going on…

1. There’s a baby expo happening in Jhb soon (I think it’s within the next week or two) … and the ladies at work have been very keen for me to go because “you get all this FREE STUFF” LOL

I’m really not into getting stuff just because it’s free. If I need it and don’t have to pay, great. But I don’t just take things because they’re free.

They looked at me like I was cuckoo

Please tell me there are more of us out there!

2. Then my sister (who is so excited) wants to know what we’ve bought.

Um, nothing.

“but you do know what you want?”

Um, no. Not at all.

“Okay, have a look at all these websites”

No, thanks, that’s not our style.

You see, I believe that when you look at too many things, you (1) get overwhelmed and (2) start thinking that you need all those things.

But they’re not needs, they’re desires.

So my thinking is to first consider carefully what we actually need, and then make a list and go shopping.

Am I crazy, or is there method in my madness?

P.S. We received a baby bag from our medical aid (insurance) and some more free stuff from a Multiples Seminar we attended which is why we have a few things.

P.P.S. We have bought them matching “what happens at Granny’s house stays at Granny’s house” babygrows (onesies) in green because they were cute and not expensive!

Oh, by the way, am 16 weeks now and at the doctor’s on Wed, one baby showed us what we wanted to see …and one didn’t … so we wait for the 20-week scan. If that one is naughty again, I’m going to “cheat” on my doctor and go see others until I know!

Today I’m 16 weeks pregnant with twins

We are very excited about the babies but with that, we had a bit of an EEEK moment when we realised we’d have to find space in the house not only for the babies, but for all the baby stuff.

We plan to convert the guest bedroom so we need to find space elsewhere for all the guest stuff, extra blankets, etc.

All of these shelves had things on them before I started moving things around (I forgot to take a proper before picture).

The aim is twofold:

1. eventually move all the guest things to our second bedroom/ study
2. have only baby things in this bedroom

A tall order!

Things I’ve realised:

1. I have too many guest items considering we only have guests a couple of times a year
2. We have absolutely no clothes for the babies – will have to do the gift registry thing soon
3. I need to seriously declutter my study and get rid of all my workshop stuff

What I did

• I moved everything baby from other places in the house to this room. Basically there were books, toiletries and some towels.
• Then I started categorising – toiletries and other baby stuff, and baby vs parenting books

Here is part 1 of the organising project

on the left, baby books and on the right, parents’ books

starting to sort the toiletries…

In the meanwhile, which baby accessories should I absolutely not get and will be a waste of money?

E.g. at a multiples seminar we attended, one of the mothers said you can use a rolled-up towel instead of buying a cot wedge.