I’m not an organized person.  I’m getting better, but I’m just not quite there yet.

I do try though.

And it’s tough being a mom and having to organize and plan all these things for your kids, and you.  Throw in coaching sports, leading the youth, a job, friends, etc, well.

Needless to say, there have been too many times that I’ve forgotten to do something or left something behind.

And do you know what kills me?

Running into the grocery store for something quick to make for dinner, planning to spend all of $10 and walking out with $50 worth of stuff that I don’t need… at least two times a week.

I don’t spend my time or money effectively or efficiently.

But I have started to do things a little differently thanks to Mr. Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace University.  If I follow the things that he tells me to do, there will come a time when I CAN afford the Wii and the Wii Fit.  Maybe by then a second generation will have come out and I pick up the first generation for cheap.

I’ll put the idea on my list.

And then I’ll lose the list.  And when the time comes, I’ll forget that I ever had that idea.

I love to make lists.  Love to plan out my day.  Love to figure out what I need to get done.

It motivates me.

But then I lose the list and in the process, accomplish nothing.

Story of my life.

I am a computer gal.  Pen and paper organizers don’t work for me.  And with the rest of the world online, using technology allows us to share things, like calendars and contacts and recipes and stuff.  So when the new year rolled around and I made the resolution, again, to try to get organized, I went searching for something that would work for me.

I found many things, but among them, and also recommended was Cozi.

There are several features of Cozi that I love, the first being the fact that I can pretty much do everything with Cozi.  It’s got a calendar, a place for shopping lists as well as a recipe search right there, so you can search for recipes as you make your list  (side note — meal planning is giving me extra money each month.  Seriously.), and it’s laid out in a very simple format.  It’s not over crowded and I don’t want to shut down everytime I see it.  The calendar is color coded for the people in the household so I can look at something on the calendar, see the orange dot next to it and know that all of us are to be there.  However, if I see a blue dot, then I know that it’s an event that Matthew needs to be at.

I like to think of Cozi as the command post because there’s an even a message center contained within that will allow me to send messages to cell phones or email addresses.  So if I’m in there and I need to ask a question, I can do it, and keep track of it.  And when I schedule an event?  A notice goes to all parties involved.  Matthew can’t ever look at me and say, “I didn’t know we had Bible Quizzing tonight.”  Take away the fact that he has it at the same time, every week.

The only thing that I don’t like about Cozi, well, two things actually, are the journaling feature and the fact that you can’t yet sync Cozi with iCal or Entourage.  If you are a windows person and use Outlook, Cozi offers the capabilities to sync the two, which is HUGE for me, and something that I would love because I do like to work with my computer more, but I am not a windows person 95% of the time.  And the jouranling thing?  I would never use it as I have a blog.  However, I know that not everyone has a blog, but I would request that the journaling feature not take up half of the screen or that users had the ability to hide it if they didn’t want to use it.

And in additon to being free?  They just announced this…

In addition to the ways that moms can get their shopping lists and calendars already on any mobile phone via text message and using our toll free number, Cozi now has a mobile version especially for the iPhone and Windows Mobile phones.  Families can now sign-in and access their Cozi account using their mobile web browsers.   They can add and edit shopping lists and view and edit their family calendar using the mobile version of Cozi right from their iPhone.  This is a new feature! You can learn more about it here:    http://www.cozi.com/Promo-Cozi-Mobile.htm

Yes, this looks like something that will definately benefit us if I can remember to log in everyday.  I’m considering making it my homepage so that I have to look at it.

Any other words of advice on how I can make sure that I use it everyday?

Until next time…

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