The rest of the year doesn’t seem that bad. I have one or two more business trips, and then some well needed vacation time. The hard question is if I want to do more traveling during my vacation time. I enjoy traveling and love to explore, but my body might be exhausted by then.

I finally got a room with a decent view this time. Is this Encore hotel an extension to Wynn, or a separate thing? I’m starting to get confused on all these brand expansions. Venetian has the Palazo, and Mandalay Bay has THEhotel. 

Speaking of back home, my sister and her family visited me yesterday. I haven’t seen my nieces in a while and they are growing quickly. Here is a cute picture of Ashley.

And tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter! Remember to drink lots of water and try to stay cool out there.

I’m on a two week assignment in Kansas City right now. It’s been a while since I’ve been here, and I’m glad it not super hot / humid. I’ll also be working nights, so lets hope that my sleep schedule doesn’t get too mixed up.

The Sprint Center is now open, and there has been a lot of development in that area, now called the Power and Light District. The area brings a much needed life back to downtown Kansas City. One restaurant that I am looking forward to is Jack Stack. I hear their ribs and burnt ends are amazing. Anyone else have recommendations on what to do in Kansas City?

This week I am at the Marriott Hotel at Grande Dunes in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for the Hacker Halted conference. The hotel is right on the beach, and the weather is quite nice (not too hot, not too humid).

The conference will take up most of my time here, but I hope to visit the new Hard Rock Park, and Broadway at the Beach at night. One thing I didn’t see were volleyball courts on the beach :( Maybe I will just go for a nice run along the shore.

My next goal might be to get #1 for just my first name in Google, but I doubt that will happen. I think the metal detectors company will out rank me on that one. But maybe with the help of the blogosphere, this site will get at least to the top ten in Google when searching for Garrett.

While the concept of outsourcing is not new, there has been a big trend of personal assistants to perform your every-day tasks. Things like buying groceries, setting up appointments, and writing thank you cards. Many people outsource functions like house cleaning and gardening, but how about having someone cooking for you?

In today’s world where everyone seems busy, hiring a personal assistant could free up some valuable time. But is it worth your money? This is where I have a hard time evaluating the worth. If it was for business, you could easily figure out if its worth the money to outsource. But when it comes to your personal life, its extremely hard to associate value to time. If you weren’t cooking for an hour, you could be spending time with your kids. You can’t associate cost to that.

The video is online, and their web site has a list of the personal assistant companies they covered. Tim Ferriss, the person behind the 4-Hour Workweek book also has a good list of resources for personal outsourcing.

So have you outsourced anything in your life? What was it? I am somewhat interested in having someone cook for me. I do like cooking though, so we will see. Maybe I’ll try it out and report back.

I tried many software approaches to organizing things to do, but none gave me the flexibility and portability of index cards. Probably the most widely used or referenced index card system is the Hipster PDA, from the DIY Planner folks.

Out of all the Hipster PDA templates, I only use the action item list one. There is one major tweak that I made to the card though. Not every item on the list will have a square box next to it. If there is a box next to each item, how do you know which one is of higher priority? Perhaps you put a number or some marking on it. But then what happens if you accomplish that task, and are wondering what is next? To reorganize your priorities will require cross outs or other new markings, and overall make a mess of the card. You would have to rewrite the whole card over if you want to quickly and easily identify what is next.

So how do I know what is a priority? I draw a box for the highest priority of that day. And once that is accomplished, put an X mark inside it. For things of lower priority that don’t get boxes, if they get done simply put an X mark beside it. With this workflow, you can easily see what is the high priority that isn’t done yet (box without an X), tasks that are complete (anything with an X), and lower priority items (empty space next to the item).

One implementation trick I have with the actionable index card system is to create a new card each Monday and Friday. The Monday card will be from Monday through Thursday, and Friday’s card will be through Sunday. I found that creating a new card each day just wastes time. I do keep records on when I accomplish major tasks, but I have no need to record the exact date of when it was done. But more on that system later.

Hopefully this gave you some insight into how I manage my work. Are you already a student of getting things done? What are some of your techniques on the system you use?

I like Lifehacker’s definition better, because it mentions getting things done smarter and more efficiently. But my definition of a lifehack is any method that enhances your producitivity to get things done. To me that covers both definitions, in a smaller package.