Cozi Conversations: Michelle Duggar

Welcome to Cozi Conversations, where we showcase the who, what, when and where of Cozi – by talking to all sorts of families, who use Cozi for all sorts of things, on all sorts of devices, in all sorts of places!

Who: Michelle Duggar

You know Michelle Duggar as mom to 19 children and star of the TLC Reality Show, 19 Kids and Counting. But did you know that Cozi is part of the family - helping keep track of schedules, chores lists, favorite meals, and even a list of who needs a new belt or shoes from the thrift store? Michelle was gracious enough to put aside some time out of her busy day (imagine!) to chat with us.

Michelle admitted to us that she's not a naturally organized person (even though her mom was), and that when it comes to technology she relies COMPLETELY on tutorials from her kids. But she makes it work by being open and eager to new things that help her raise a happy family, and we're proud that Cozi is one of those things.

What Cozi features do you use most?

Cozi Gold – Calendar, Shopping Lists, To Do Lists. The Duggars have 12 members of their family on Cozi, including a married son and wife, and Grandma (husband Jim Bob’s mother). The producer of their show has even been a family member in order to be in sync with their schedule. It’s quite difficult to round up 20+ people!

During our chat, she noticed the new Birthday Tracker feature. The family has lots of birthdays that they CANNOT forget, and it takes a bit of mental math to mention someone's age. So Michelle decided on the spot to put her 15-year-old daughter on the task of entering in their birthdays.

Besides using to do lists for each person’s household chores and fixes (see John-David’s to the right), rental property projects, and meal ideas, Michelle has one for the Duggar Bank – her way of keeping track of the kids’ earnings from “opportunities to serve the family,” which is her optimistic reference to chores.

Although she doesn't use the Journal personally, Michelle noticed someone in the family had been adding pics of the family and funny captions. It sounds like the kids have been having fun with it.

Where do you access Cozi?

iPhone. Michelle uses Cozi on her iPhone app almost exclusively. She has her phone with her throughout the day and it sounds like there isn’t much time to sit down at a computer to access Cozi on the web.

When did you start using Cozi?

About two years ago. Michelle didn’t remember exactly, but recalled that the family hadn’t used a wall calendar in 2012 nor 2011.

How does Cozi make your family life better?

Michelle says Cozi simplifies things for the family and saves time - the entire Duggar family is sometimes called upon to be at a single event, and a quick glance at the month calendar in Cozi helps make that happen. With such a large family, double booking is almost unavoidable, but she says Cozi usually prevents it.

Michelle answers questions we often ask our community

What’s your least favorite chore? Michelle said “Dishes!” without hesitation. She finds doing laundry to be “okay” and as for vacuuming, she likes it because it means the floor is actually clear enough to vacuum. (We can relate.)

She also had some very wise advice for getting kids to help out around the house, but we’ll have to leave that as the topic of another post!

Small Victory Friday – what one thing are you proud of accomplishing this week? (We ask this question every Friday on facebook) "I cleaned out the whole bottom drawer on my side of the bathroom. Now there are only about three things in there. And I had to put the stuff somewhere, so I ended up cleaning out my closet and now when I walk by and see a clean space behind the door, it feels so good!"

Thanks so much for telling us a little bit about your busy life, and how Cozi takes on the job of keeping track of so many schedules and to dos!