About QuirkOut!

We were sharing an “oh, to hell with it” plate of french fries when Diane and I stumbled across the idea for QuirkOut! Colleagues in marketing for not-for-profit arts organizations, we were talking over lunch about surviving our lives as busy professionals.

At some point, I confessed to Diane that one of the ways I try to keep myself organized is to rewrite my grocery list before I go shopping. As counter-intuitive as it may seem to spend the time to redo what I’ve already done, I actually list each item in the order they’re shelved as I go through the store. I get incredibly frustrated wasting time backtracking for an onion or something when I made it all the way to the dairy section.

That’s when she leaned in and told me she even takes it one step further… filling in an excel template already set up aisle by aisle.

We both stopped for a moment to appreciate that someone else shares our habit.

And that the idea of such a coping strategy might explain other things we do… like packing three purses for an overnight trip.

Then we got to thinking – certainly most people have similarly personalized strategies for just getting through the day. To make it through their crazy lives. Because no matter your age or situation – full-time job, managing a household, kids or no kids, in a relationship or single – you see your life as crazy busy.

So as Diane and I each felt a sense of validation that neither of us were the only ones to rewrite the grocery list, we were sure that others would feel the same. That they would want to share these highly personal habits, and to learn from others. (Turns out we were right, as we found at our first Cocktails & QuirkOut party, but we’ll say more about that another time.)

We created quirkout.com as an actual place to share these quirky habits that help us get through our crazy lives – with a sense of camaraderie, friendly support, and most of all, fun.

-Cary Goldwasser