Cozi

Whether large or small, this app will help you organize your household

With the school season quickly approaching, I’m sure most of you are preparing to manage your family’s hectic schedules. Work, school, sports; the list is never-ending. Frankly, without the proper tools, it can all be overwhelming. I have the perfect solution: Cozi, an app that will help you organize your entire family’s schedule in one place.

Cozi is a web-based application that specializes in household management. Available for iPhone, iPad, Android and via any mobile browser, Cozi can be accessed and updated anywhere and at any time. Only one account is needed for each family, with two “adult,” or account, administrators, and you can add up to 10 family members. Each member has access to a shared calendar, to-do list and grocery list. Unfortunately, there is not an option for each family member to create a unique password; only one “master” password is used for every family member’s login. So if you or your spouse have any personal items or events that you don’t want the entire family to know about, you need to keep record of that elsewhere. 

The calendar can highlight each family member’s events by color so there is never confusion about where everyone needs to be. You can see who has practice/rehearsal, a doctor’s appointment or a meeting. Cozi has an option of setting reminders to alert when it’s time for an activity or task; also, you can email a weekly agenda to every member of your family so all are aware of what they need to do for that week.

A feature that can be extremely useful is the Meals Section. With this handy tool you can map out your family’s meals for the week using recipes that have been added to your recipe box. If you haven’t added any recipes of your own you can find inspiration under Cozi’s picks, a compilation of popular dinner recipes that have been added by other users. An awesome addition to the Meals Section is the ability to add missing ingredients to your shopping list directly from within your Recipe Box or from one of Cozi’s picks.

The only possible deterrent concerning Cozi is the steep $29.99 annual fee for the Cozi Gold upgrade. With Cozi Gold you get:

• AD-FREE
• Birthday Tracker
• Multiple Reminders: You can set multiple reminders for each appointment.
• Mobile Month View: You can view your whole month on your mobile device(s).
• Streamlined Meal Planning: You can view and update your calendar while mapping out meals for the week.
• Activity Sharing: You can share activities with those outside your family.
• Maximum Messages: There is no limit to the number of messages you can share with the entire family on your homepage.
• Priority Support:  You receive top-priority, email-based customer support.

For some, these added perks are worth $29.99. For others like me, who just need a little more order, the standard edition of Cozi is more than sufficient. Either way, Cozi is a great app designed to help the scatterbrained, i.e. me, return to a productive and organized existence.