Cozi Calendar Review

While we're on this organization kick, let's talk about keeping schedules.  Because seriously, it feels impossible now and I only have a 1 year old. Can you imagine when school functions and fund raisers and dead lines, etc come into play?  I don't even dare to think about it just yet.  Anyway, I think I've found a pretty awesome solution to keeping our family's schedules straight, and with any luck this might even carry through for some years to come.

Cozi Calendars.  I tried using this a few months ago and hated it.  Mainly because I was stupid enough to sign up for Fly Lady who spams EVERYTHING at all times.  While her theory is great, if it's designed for someone on a busy schedule, that means I don't have time to read the 12 e-mails you send me a day.

I digress.



Today I picked it back up again, and set out to get rid of her stupid cleaning schedule.  After I succeeded, it became the best thing ever.

I have 3 calendars, 1 for each member of the family.

My dear husband, who works a 5 section rotating shift, is always working something different each week.  While it really doesn't matter in the long run, it is nice to know when his days off will be.  So, while I have his entire work schedule on his calendar, I've put for his days off to show on not just his, but mine and L's.

MY calendar gets reserved for things like appointments for me and L, trips and vacation planning, important visits, etc.  Things that either I'M going to be the person who has to do it, or things that will concern the whole family as I'll probably be the one to remind everyone.

And then there's L's calendar.  I know, you're probably asking yourself, "How much stuff can a 1 year old have that requires them to have their own calendar?"  Just hear me out.

How often do you get up in the morning, hoping to do something with your kid, a play group or free activity perhaps?  But, you have to check to see what is going on that day.  And by the time you finally get the chance to check everything, little one is ready for a nap.  They wake up, eat lunch, and then you hope to make it somewhere if there's still something going on.  9 times out of 10 it happened in the morning and so you resolve to taking them to the grocery store, or to walk to mall, in order to get them out of the house?

Why not check the night before?  There's a lot of work that goes into searching for it.  I don't know about you, but at the end of my day my brain power is squat.

So, here's my "review," if you will, of cozi calendar, with a WHOLE bunch of pictures so you can perhaps decide if it's something that will work for you before you go diving in.

First is the lists section of Cozi.  This is just the to do's.  If you don't select the drop down, as I have, there is a text box so you can enter in what it is you're putting on your list.  As you see you can add to your lists, as well as organize, rename, and delete them.  Remember, everything you put in here is available on your mobile device/ipod touch to view.  So it's like sharing your brain between your phone and your computer.  If you think of something while you're out, it's there and available once you're home without having to remember WHERE you wrote it down, or typed it in.  If you use this as a family they can all log in to 1 account.  That means you can view each others to do lists and perhaps help one another out.  Probably not handy for all, but as a stay at home mom, if there's something my husband needs done or picked up, I can just pop over to his list and grab it for him.

Next up, shopping lists.  Same idea as your to do's.  It comes set up with the 3 lists shown here, you can delete them and add to them as you want/need.

Meal planner.  Lay out your meals for the day/week/etc.  Note the tabs up top. There is also a place to store recipes.  I haven't messed around with this too much yet as, per my previous post, I use Pepper Plate for my grocery list and recipe storage.  However, if this is as functional as that is, it may be worth having everything all in one place.


On to the calendar.  Currently we're looking at what shows up when I click "calendar" on the left column, and then selected my calendar at a months view.  Not the drop down menu.  Switching calendar's between people is that easy.  Click "show" and all your calendars are available to select.  View 1 or view all.  Up at the tabs, if you look to the left you'll see something that says "type appointments" with an arrow before it.  Putting in a new appointment is pretty simple done that way, however I just double click the day and use the little box that pops up.  Note you can see your calendars at a day, week or month view.

 There is a print option.  You can print "this week," "next week," "a few weeks," by selecting which weeks you want on a calendar that pops up at this option, or "a month."  If you're looking to print the calendar for whatever reason, it makes it handy to have all right there.  The biggest reason I would find printing handy would be, again, for the children.  For my daughter, I track play groups.  We'll get to inputting in a few minutes, however when you input there are spots for all the details (such as location).  As long as you fill these in, should you opt to print your weeks view for a babysitter, it will show them what play groups happen on what day, the times, and the address for the play group, story time, open gym, etc.  You can find pre-approved activities for your children to do and print the list at the start of each week.  Your regular sitter, or grandma and grandpa sitting for the week while you're on vacation, will have your child's routine at their finger tips.  The same applies for after school activities.  If it's already in this calendar you don't have to stop and think about it, and it doesn't stop you from having it at your finger tips.  Nor do you have to copy it X amount of times for the appropriate number of care givers.



The input stage.  So, to get here I just double clicked on a date from the month view of the calendar.  In this case I happen to already be on L's calendar.  In your description you would put something like "Story time-springfield" (I put the city as there are several story times in our 5 to 6 surrounding towns).  Below the description you have the ability to check off additional family members calendars you want this to show on.  Not really applicable for this, however, remember when I was talking about my husbands schedule?  When I put in his days off, I select that they show up on all calendars.  This way I know when he has a day off or so coming, and if there's something we'd like to take L to do as a family, it shows up on L's calendar that the activity AND Daddy's day off happen on the same day!

Next is "Repeat."  If you click this box and option shows up that says "every week."  If you click week you can change it to day or month.  And a date box shows up so you can select an end date if it's a program that only lasts a few weeks, or during the school year.  I will add that if you don't put an end date on something like Friday story time at the library, and all of a sudden it's canceled, should you go to edit the event and select "delete," it does ask you for JUST this occurrence (the date you just selected) or "going forward." Going forward means it will delete all Friday story times from that date forward on your calendar.  I LOVE this function as normally on calendars, such as Google Calendars, in order to delete recurring events I have to select each one that shows up weekly or daily to get rid of it.  There isn't a multi delete function like there is a multi add function.

Moving on, we have the dates and times.  So, if it's vacation for a week, when does it start and when does it end?  If it's a daily story time, from what time to what time?  When you click the time 2 columns show up.  12am-11am and 12 pm to 11pm.  If you select, say 10 am, next to it will say :15 :30 :45 so you can add your time at increments of 15 minutes.

Location, Reminders, Part of a Schedule and Notes.
Location is pretty self explanatory.  If you put in the name, say Springfield Library and 123 Main St. when you go to print your schedule it will print the place name and address, as well as the time you put in at the previous step.  Also, when you highlight this activity on your month or day view of the calendar, it will provide the information without having to open the activity all the way up.

Reminders are pretty self explanatory.

Part of a Schedule.  The only thing I have found yet that this is useful for is printing.  If, you know, you go to work 8 to 5 M-F every day, but put it on your calendar so you can see what overlaps, you would click part of schedule.  When you go to print out your week view, it prints things that AREN'T part of your schedule.  Stuff you would need to remember because it's not routine.

Notes.  I put in information about L's activities in here.  The cost, any special things to make note of, such as this play group has mats and gym equipment for her to use rather than just a bunch of kids running around in an open space.  Stuff of that nature.

This is L's day view.  I've blacked out the Library/town names and addresses.  But, you can see that our Wednesday 10 am slot is pretty full.  It lets me compare side by side what's going on at 10 on Wednesday so we can pick which one to go to.

And lastly is L's monthly outlook.  You see now why I add the town names and what not next to the titles, especially with Wednesday's and Thursday's!  So, if I highlight say "Music & Movement" on Thursdays it will tell me where it is and the times as well as any other details in it.  If you look on the 18th you'll see that it shows that both Jeff is off AND Sunshine Story Time is happening.  So, if that was an activity my husband was really wanting to be involved in, at a quick glance we could see when the next time is he would be available to do so.  Especially with some of these kids events that happen weekly, it makes it WAY easy, just check every Monday on your calendar until you see however it is you've labeled day's off.

And lastly, what devices does it carry an App for? Check Cozi's list here to see if your device is on the list that supports a Cozi app!

Anyway, that's my little "review" of the Cozi Calendar, I hope it helps some of you.

Also, I'd like to add a plug for Macaroni Kid.  Take a look at the almost top left.  Note you can pick your state, and then city area.  This has a TON (or at least in my area) of local things to do with your kids.  It tells you the age groups it's for, some details on the event, price, location, and usually contact information to someone who can tell you more about it.  DEFINITELY worth the look to see if there's anything in your community for your kids to check out.  I like that I got MOST of my stuff from Macarnoi Kid and everything I selected was free.  Also, check out libraries in your area.  Not only do a lot of them carry at least a story time for children, but some carry neat music and arts programs that may be worth checking out.