My super-amazing new friend Nicci Anna (Neech-ee-On-uh) who homeschools 5 boys excitedly told us about Cozi one day at our Play & Pray group. She showed us how she had her whole life accessible on her touch phone. She even talked about how FlyLady and Cozi had formed a partnership so that you could link your housekeeping chores onto your Cozi schedule.
I was intrigued, but not sure if it would work for me or not. I don't have a cell phone, so I didn't know how it would work for me to digi-tize my schedule. I've given it a month and I'm here to say that....
....I LOVE COZI!!!! It has truly been the biggest help for me this fall in staying on course with homeschooling and raising 4 children.
Cozi is free and has lots of options for you depending on whether you want to link it with other online calendars, such as FlyLady's cleaning schedule, etc. I love that it remembers your schedule so that you aren't having to fill in the blanks every week with the same ol' stuff. For example, I took my personal chore chart and entered things into the master schedule like: clean the van on the first day of each month, water plants every other Tuesday, pay bills on the 10th of each month, write to grandparents, etc. It remembers these things and automatically brings them up when it's time. Maybe this isn't so exciting to all of you if you've been doing this for years, but this non-techie is impressed with my first computerized schedule! I love that it automatically color-codes the schedule for each person in your family. I love that you can have it automatically send your husband and yourself a weekly e-mail reminder of the upcoming week's schedule. I love that you can make grocery lists and menu plans on it and then print them out before you head to the store. I love sending my hubby little notes from my Cozi page saying, "So-and-so called for you" or "Your wife is having a rough day--you might want to bring home some dark chocolate!" Cozi even has a journal feature which I use to jot down baby milestones and funny things the kids' say. You can choose to have your journal routinely e-mailed to relatives or uploaded to your fb page if you want to!
I even put my homeschool lesson plans on Cozi so my whole life is all in one place. When I get up in the morning, I have my game plan, and that makes things a lot easier. I always struggle to stay on top of written planners or to keep track of paper lists with lesson plans, but because I'm in the habit of checking my e-mail throughout the day, checking my Cozi page is a snap. I leave my page up on the screen throughout the day and have it set so that my Cozi page always comes up when I click Internet Explorer.
I have to agree with Nicci, just being able to put all the details of motherhood, ministry and life-in-general down frees your brain to forget it. I'm now remembering all the stuff that so easily fell by the wayside with a written schedule. My brain feels less tired because I release those details the minute they are entered onto the calendar. Have I become a slave to the schedule? Absolutely not! I still procrastinate on some chores I should be doing or choose to bump a chore to tomorrow that I just can't get to today. I still have lots of flex with my schedule, and I see the FlyLady zones as suggestions, not imperatives.
If I want to carry my schedule with me I can quickly print off the weekly or monthly chart. I'm constantly talking about preparation on this blog, and how essential it is to motherhood, and this wonderful and free tool called Cozi is keeping me prepared and focused during this stage of life!
(And I'm in no way getting paid to promote Cozi!)
I've looked at several programs online, but not this one. I might have to check it out. I always return to the good old paper version though, with lists I've made myself. I like physically crossing stuff off, seeing the page "empty" out so to speak. But since I also love lists and organizing...I'm sure this week, I'll look at cozi.
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