On Friday night we leave the office thinking about our huge list of undone projects at work, only to remember we have a huge list of undone projects at home.
Errands are like leg hair — the minute you think it’s all taken care of, you find you missed an entire batch. And eventually, it’s all back and needs to be redone.
To paraphrase the famous saying: “To errand is human, to forget is divine.” Which translates into: you forgot to get toilet paper during your Target run.
It also means leaving the house and forgetting the dress you wanted shortened or the shoes you need resoled and the dog you meant to take to the groomer. Or worse, leaving the dog to get resoled at the cobbler and the shoes to get shortened at the tailor.
So make a QuirkOut list of the things women do to get errands done. Just don’t leave it at home.
HAVE SUITCASE, WILL TRAVEL
Every week the dry cleaning pile piles up. There are women’s skirts with salad dressing stains and men’s shirts with wing sauce that they swear did not happen at Hooters.
Our friend Brianna has a QuirkOut idea to make things easier on herself. When she travels, she takes dirty clothes with her to the hotel. Yes, you read that right.
The minute she arrives, she calls valet service. A very nice staff person knocks on her door and then politely whisks the clothes away. Like magic, they reappear in the closet, cleaned and perfectly pressed for her business meetings and social engagements.
So what if the bill is more than the garment cost to buy? The plan is genius, even if her husband thinks she’s putting on the Ritz.
IT’S PERSONAL
We’re just so busy these days. Friends ask us how we are, and our answer is “Hectic.” Our mothers check in, and we snarl, “Rushing out the door — can’t talk.”
As our friend Jane says, “Complaining about being busy is the new status symbol.”
Imagine if you asked somebody “How are things going?” and she replied, “I’m so relaxed and calm, you’d think I had my own housewife.”
Take a minute (if you have one to spare) and look at your own calendar to find out one reason you’re on the run. You get your hair colored at the salon by the office. Mani-pedis are done at the mall. Then there’s the bikini wax at the nice spa and the massage at the cheap salon.
Gail finally had a QuirkOut breakdown and changed her approach. “I decided to have everything done at one place. I did it in service to my sanity, even if every service isn’t perfect.” It’s a kind of Jiffy Lube for her body.
As she moves from station to station, it looks like the makeover scene in “The Wizard of Oz.” In the end she taps her shoes three times, and she’s beautiful.
COLOR ME ORGANIZED
If you’re a list maker (and show me a woman who isn’t), you know the frustration. You keep the “Errands to Get Done This Weekend” list close at hand. As you think of tasks, you jot them down.
But on Saturday morning, you freak out trying to figure out how to get it all done.
Not for Carnie and her QuirkOut approach. “My to-do list is numbered and highlighted in different colors for different priorities and groups.” Sounds more complicated than the IPO for Facebook.
She explains, “Yellow is for the grocery store and dry cleaner next door. Blue is for the plaza with Trader Joe’s and PetCo. And green is for the bank, of course.”
Carnie, we color you organized but would like to add one more hue. How about using pink as a reminder to take a breath before we have to call a Code Red.
