Jo Burgess Life Sorted Interview

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Tech founder and Mum of two, Jo Burgess, is the creator of Life Sorted, a mobile and desktop family organiser app, among the highest rated family organiser apps on the App Store. Life Sorted is a shared family organiser app designed specifically to reduce stress and overwhelm around family scheduling, through increasing productivity and improving family communication.

Jo Burgess says: "Think of it like a personal assistant helping you manage your busy family life with a shared calendar, shopping lists, birthday reminders and to-do lists."

During an extremely busy time in her life - despite considering herself an organised person - Jo was really struggling to keep up with everything. She was juggling work, travel for work and coordinating what seemed like a ga-zillion activities. Jo was trying to fit in quality time with her husband and children along with trying to keep the house organised and making sure everyone was eating well. She was desperate for some overdue me-time.

Jo states: "My biggest challenge was coordinating everyone's activities. Making sure everyone had what they needed – knew where they needed to be – and knew how they were getting there, and back. Plus, dealing with changes that came up every day and keeping everyone updated (like when tennis lessons got cancelled due to rain, what was plan B."

"I went looking for a better way. In my quest to find a solution I tried so many things: paper diaries, planners, homemade spreadsheets, family wall calendars and a variety of apps. Nothing really worked. To cut a long story short, I figured that if I had these problems so must others. I decided to create my own app to solve these problems."

Life Sorted is currently helping thousands of Australian families to live a happier life together, by giving them a way to keep their family's events, birthdays, to-dos, shopping lists and reminders in one place.

The design layout is simple, beautiful and easy to use so all family members can use the app across all devices - computer, laptop, tablet and phones.

What Mums who use the app are saying:

"I have tried many planner/family calendar apps and this is by far the best I have used." - Amy Louise Beauman

"It's like you went into my head and worked out what I wanted and needed. With three kids, I needed something that was easy to use and a place where I could see everything in one place - perfect! - Ange Tebble Davies

"Life Sorted has literally changed my life. For the first time in my adult life, I am reliable and organised - people can't believe it." - Chelsea Koetsveld

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Interview with Jo Burgess, Life Sorted founder

Question: What inspired you to create the app Life Sorted?

Jo Burgess: It was when my kids were in primary and secondary school that I realised my trusty old diary (that I adored/couldn't live without/if it got lost I had heart palpitations!) just wasn't cutting it. It wasn't helping me communicate with my husband about what was on that week - it wasn't reminding the kids what they needed to pack for after-school activities so I didn't have to repeat myself every freaking day! It was falling short big-time but after trying spreadsheets and going through my 'post-It note' phase I knew I needed something else. I tried a few apps but they didn't do everything I wanted, and I didn't want MULTIPLE apps - I wanted one. I was frustrated with my lack of options, so decided to create one for myself.


Question: What is Life Sorted?

Jo Burgess: Life Sorted, a mobile and desktop family organiser app, among the highest rated family organiser apps on the app stores. Life Sorted is essentially a shared family organiser app designed specifically to reduce stress and overwhelm around family scheduling, increase productivity and improve family communication. This must-have app for families gives stressed-out parents a way to communicate with each other and their kids without having swap between multiple apps and diaries. It gives the grown-ups in the family a convenient way to stay organised, without having to remember every single detail of what's happening each day.


Question: How does Life Sorted differ from a traditional diary?

Jo Burgess: Being a cloud-based technology solution, Life Sorted provides one place for everyone and everything that can be accessed anywhere, anytime ... eliminating the need for constant nagging, emails, texts and phone calls around the family's activities.


Question: How has Life Sorted eased the stress of your hectic life?

Jo Burgess: With Life Sorted you'll be able to reduce the brain-clutter and overwhelm that comes from managing a busy, modern life, as well as …

keep everyone in the loop with what's going on
ensure you never forget another birthday
set reminders for yourself and others
create to-dos and shopping lists to share the load.

Question: Can you share some of the success stories from families using Life Sorted?

Jo Burgess: Hi Jo, Thank you so much for bringing Life Sorted to us. It's like you went into my head and worked out what I wanted and needed. I have been searching for an app like yours a long time. With three kids, I needed something that was easy to use and a place where I could see everything in one place - perfect! - Ange.

"I tell EVERYONE about Life Sorted, because it has legitimately changed my life. I keep nagging a couple of my unorganised friends to download it already! For the first time in my adult life I am reliable and organised - people can't believe it. My partner loves it too, it used to drive him insane how I would make plans and then forget to tell him. So, thank you for creating such a fantastic app." - Chelsea


Question: What other advice do you have for busy mums on sorting their life?

Jo Burgess: There are lots of ideas on the blog.

#1. Piece of advice: Your brain is really not the best place to store everything - You need a place to store "all the things".

Life Sorted is for you if:
You feel stressed having to manage your hectic family life.
You suffer from brain-clutter trying to remember and stay on top of 'all the things'.
You worry about forgetting something important - like picking a child or a buying a birthday gift.
Your life feels like one big logistics headache, from coordinating kids pickup times, to sporting activities, dentist appointments, work commitments, and the rest!
Your to-do list is out of control and you find it hard to prioritise.
You seem to be 'the one' who is managing everything for the whole family - everyone relies on
You to tell them where they have to be (and when).
You are constantly making phone calls and sending texts to update everyone when plans change. You find it hard keeping track of many calendars.
You're sick of talking about the darn schedule and would rather enjoy each moment instead of always thinking about what's happening next.


Interview by Brooke Hunter