An important aspect of PKM is stimulating the right habits and reminding yourself to attend to a particular thing at the appropriate time. For example, you might want to remind yourself of some of the following recurring events such as:

• when to exercise

• when to pay the bills
• when to water your plants
• when you should study
• when you need to take medicine
• when a proposal, project deadline or assignment is due
• when an important anniversary is happening

The mission of The KMAfrica.com Knowledge Warrior Project is to provide links to useful software and know-how which together comprise most of what you need to support your KM efforts both on the road and in the office. The criteria for this collection of software includes the following:

• Ease of use

• Ability to work with data from different software packages
• Preferably FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) so no expenditure is required.
• Functionality
• Portability - allowing you access from anywhere
• Backup and recovery strategies

We'll be looking at the following software in depth

• FOSS Operating Systems such as Linux

• Office software - including presentation, drawing, spreadsheet, word processing and database
• Web search strategies, software and browsers
• Browser addin software for KM and information processing
• Mobile / 3G systems
  

The ability to network powerfully is an important skill and a key resource in your personal knowledge management strategy. In this discussion we'll look at ways of interacting with your network plus ideas for powerful networking. You could see your network as a series of circles that contain your immediate family, your friends, your professional networks, and the general public. While some of these overlap, others do not are and quite distinct. In addition to the face-to-face networks you engage in on a day-to-day basis, the vast majority of these networks are becoming available on-line and so these ideas are designed to provide know-how designed to help you get the best out of all of your networks:

• Create a clear vision of success for yourself including an idea of what you want. Do not proceed until you have achieved this.

• Cultivate a clear idea of the network, its' identity, why you want to be part of it and what you want from it.
  

The following details some of the more common fallacies of logic and rhetoric. It is an important thinking skill to be able to recognise when one or more of the following are being used:

• Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.

• Argument from “authority” or "appealing to a higher power"
• Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an “unfavourable” decision).
• Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
  

Based on the book 'The Demon Haunted World' by Carl Sagan, the following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments:

• Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts

• Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
• Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no “authorities”).
• Spin more than one hypothesis - don’t simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
  

Google Squared is a search tool that helps you build a collection of facts from the Web for topics that you specify. Facts about your topic are organized as a table of items and attributes (called "Squares"). Of course, you need to create the question that will get the system to display the results that you need. Once the initial squares are generated, you can:

• Customize these Squares to see just the items and attributes you're interested in (by adding rows and columns to the square)

• See the websites that served as sources for the information in your Square.
  

The way in which the majority of internet users use search engines is simplistic in the extreme if we are to believe the statistics. Normally, a visit to google.com, few key words, a few clickthroughs with only a small minority of searches ever making it onto page 2. The result is that you are missing out on an enormous amount. Here are some suggestions for your personal search strategy that will empower your internet use and make your searches more powerful.

• There isn't just google! Remember that there are many search engines on the internet - don't rely on a single source and cross reference with other search engines. Sites such as Dogpile.com have the ability to search across multiple search engines eg. google, yahoo and msn.

A model is a formal, abstract, hypothetical description of a complex entity, system or process. Any system can be represented through a number of different models, depending on the level of abstraction required and the intention behind how the model is to be used. Examples of everyday models include climatic models as expressed in weather forecasts, models of ecosystems, economies, stock market simulations and other complex systems. While you can expect to study many different models during your career, it is important to understand the following principles about all models:

• A model is an attempt to explain the dynamics of "what is going on". It can never really explain what is really "going on".

• A Useful Model that is shared, openly discussed and deconstructed leads to a common understanding and insight.
  

In this age, if you are doing business with anyone, it is more than likely that they will be finding out about you by searching for your profile on the Internet. There are a huge variety of networking, special interest groups, mailing lists and sites that tell a lot about you if you are associated with them. And the reason you need to be aware of this is that these linkages can work to your benefit or detriment if they are not properly and actively managed. There are stories of people who have been hired and fired based on what is found out about them on the internet.

The following are some of the skills and the taxonomy associated with personal knowledge management (PKM)

• Reflection Related to continuous improvement on how you operate - using your outputs and experiences as learning inputs.

• Managing your own learning Manage how and when you learn and the ability to create and manage your own personal learning environments.
• Information literacy Understanding what information is important, understanding what information is unimportant (exformation) and how to find unknown information. Also consider Neo-Literacy and ability to engage diverse media - physical and computer-based.
• Organizational skills Personal librarianship? Indexing. Backup. Personal categorization and taxonomies. Ability to recover from disaster