The Lifestyle Experts
Episode 1: The Lifestyle Assistant
Episode 1 of The Lifestyle Experts follows two Melbourne households seeking solutions to juggle work and family life by engaging a Lifestyle Assistant.
The Lifestyle Assistant is dynamic ex-Glaswegian Sharon Runciman. In a time-poor world, Sharon's promise is to give people back the time to enjoy life. Her philosophy is that an ordered life is a happy one - but she faces a huge challenge with the hectic Kean family of suburban Melbourne.
Des Kean is an ambulance paramedic working 14 hour shifts, Mary manages a medical practice fulltime, they have four active kids to look after and ferry around, a household to run... The house is in chaos, with the kids' rooms upstairs abandoned to chronic messiness. Mary's weekends are spent tired and grumpy with housework. It seems there are never enough hours in the day, and they can't see a way out.
Sharon offers the Keans a solution to their problems, but it involves some domestic shake-ups they may not be comfortable with. She tries to find ways to motivate the kids to help out more at home, and rolls up her sleeves to lead the way with her take-no-prisoners 'declutter' strategy.
Sharon is always immaculately attired, in crisply ironed uniform, and has a gift for organization that is staggering. As her husband David remarks proudly in the program: 'I sometimes think Sharon would have been good in some kind of military manouevres.'
Meanwhile Sharon's other new clients are Diane and Max Marker, high-flying business people shuttling between interstate offices, and desperately looking for a way to cope with an imminent house-move and all that goes with it.
Diane's eyes light up when she hears what Sharon offers! While Mary Kean still grapples with her guilt at not being 'supermum', Diane has no such qualms, leaping in to try out Sharon's brave new world of Lifestyle Management.