Personal-Skills

This page exists to provide information on personal skills. Its basically a list of stuff find useful. Anything I find that I want to include on this page will be categorised according to where I think it fits in. There are mental, physical, and social attributes for example, which are each distinct from each other and each attribute has recognisable phases of growth, development and skill. Where external links are used, the will be indicated with >Link>.

Mental attributes

What constitutes a mental life-skill? A skill which contributes towards the upkeep of ones mental health or a skill which allows one to use ones mind more efficiently.

MENTAL DEVELOPMENT

Mental growth starts at birth and involves acquiring facts. Mental growth is about seeking for explanations, trying to find out how things work.

The education of the child, by Ellen Key.

Library work with children, by Alice Hazeltine.

helping ones children with homework, a guide by a parent teacher association.


MENTAL GROWTH

Mental development continues throughout life and is about reasoning with facts. Developing ones mental potential involves improving ones memory and reasoning capacity. Mental development is about seeking demonstrations, looking for examples of what we understand.

The fundamentals of effective study.

Key study skills.

Study basics course.

Problem solving.

The analysis of mind by Bertrand Russel, a behavioural psychology book.

The categories by Aristotle.

The power of concentration by Theron Demont.

The psychology of beauty by Ethel Puffer.

MENTAL SKILLS

Mental skills are abilities that use memory. Developing a mental skill involves predicting facts; ones perception depends on how well one uses ones memory. Mental skills come through imitation, practising what we have seen demonstrated, and experimentation, exploring to increase our understanding.

Composition	Some advice on writing a technical report. By Alan T. Sherman. How to solve and write-up homework problems. By Alan T. Sherman. The art of writing by Robert Louis Stevenson. How to Fail in Literature, by Andrew Lang. Familiar studies of men & books, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Interface	Using the Unix operating system. Not exactly an essential mental tool for everyone’s lives, but here is an introductory guide anyway. Email101 by John Goodwin(1993). The hitchhikers guide to the internet by Ed Krol(1987). Big Dummys guide to the internet by the Electronic Frontier Foundation(1994).
Computer System Knowledge	Writing WebPages in html. Like this page for example. The open source reader. Compiled by Felipe Csaszar from lots of other writings. Best read in this entire section. The idea virus. By Seth Godin. Looks at how ideas are transmitted over the internet, and how this applies to marketing. Hackers, Heroes of the computer revolution by Steven Levy(1984). The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling(1994). A brief history of the internet by Michael Hart with Max Fuller(1995). Internet jargon file (1996).
Programming	Morphism functions by Alan Sherman. An Algorithms Policy by Alan Sherman. Theoretical computer science formulas. A computing theory cheat sheet, by Alan Sherman.
Personal financial management	Annual cash flow. Managing ones financial resources doesn’t require a degree in accountancy. Net worth.
Amusement	a hackers perspective.

Physical attributes

What constitutes a physical life-skill? A skill which contributes towards the upkeep of ones physical health or a skill which allows one to utilise ones body more efficiently.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

The Body.

Eating disorders. A brief explanation of eating disorders. I couldn’t make up my mind where to put this so I settled on physical.

Addictions. A brief explanation of addiction, reason its in physical is I couldn’t make up my mind where else to put it.

PHYSICAL GROWTH

Physical development comes through improving the body.

Weight Training. A comprehensive guide to developing ones physical strength and musculature through weight training. Not yet complete. A brief list of weight exercises.

Stretching. A comprehensive document on stretching by Brad Appleton.

Fitness training. A fitness training programme, a pretty good one which I blatantly nicked from the British Army.

Mobility training. Basic exercises which help one to become more balanced and maintain fitness into old age.

Stamina training. Basic exercises which help one to become stronger and develop and maintain cardiovascular health. A harsh-ish workout schedule. The ab-curl beep test. The same beep test but small enough to fit on a floppy. Very poor sound quality though. A list of the number of repetitions in a beep test

PHYSICAL SKILL

A physical skill is a set of multi-operation body movements.

Martial arts	A martial arts reference source. The same document in >word
Stealth	Movement at night. An old Japanese army training manual.
Driving	Driving tips by Alan Sherman.

Social Skills

What constitutes a social life-skill? A skill which contributes towards the upkeep or development of ones social-life, or a skill which allows one to interact with people with greater ease. Social skills represent ones ability to determine how best to react to other people, and how to behave in given situations.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Social growth involves understanding that relationships exist, and seeking to understand how they work. In short social growth is learning about people and personal skills.

Building self-confidence and self-esteem.

Managing yourself and your time.

A developmental disorder: Asperger Syndrome, that hampers social development. Its diagnostic criteria. A personal view of asperger syndrome by Thomas Madar. A guide to coping with it by Marc Segar.

The importance of relationships.

SOCIAL GROWTH

Social development comes through reasoning with relationships. Developing ones social potential involves improving ones ability to relate to others. Social development is about observing relationships, looking for examples of what we understand. In short, social development is learning about politeness, or interpersonal skills.

Assertiveness skills.

Communication skills. Icebreaker questions for opening up a conversation.

How to spot the socialised psycho there are some people with whom contact can only prove damaging. Here is how to spot them, before it is too late.

SOCIAL SKILLS

Social skills are abilities that involve relationships. Developing social skills involves using and predicting relationships. In short, multi-personal skills, or politics. Skills that require perceiving emotional undercurrents involve training your ability to relate to other living things, your charisma and sympathetic emotions.

Seduction	How to get laid. By Leanne Hayes. How to fuck up relationships. By Mary Anne. An amusing take on what not to do to have a positive relationship. Dating. Relationship duties. Relationships involve give and take; here is an amusing guideline. Chatting to women.
Strategy	The art of war by Sun Tzu, and the same including commentary.
Hypnosis

Spirituality

Ones spirit is ones strength of mind, ones willpower with which one defends ones personality from being distorted or weakened through external infiltration via pain, trauma or intoxication. Ones spirit is ones ability to remain calm, collected – even sane – under severe psychological stress.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

Spiritual growth/ Sanity/ The soul.

Depression. A brief explanation of depression.

Anxiety. A brief explanation of anxious disorder.

Dementia. A brief explanation of dementia.

Schizophrenia. A brief explanation of schizophrenia.

SPIRITUAL GROWTH

Improving ones sanity/ spirituality/ the soul.

Thoughts and feelings.

SPIRITUAL SKILLS

Using ones sanity/ using the soul/ using spirituality.

The way of the warrior	The book of five rings by Miyamoto Musashi.
Keeping a diary	a diary sheet. by Andrew Coll. More of a training log actually.
Goal setting.	Affirmations.

Author

This page has been created by and is maintained by, Andrew Coll.

People whose articles contribute to this page include: Alan Sherman, Brad Appleton, Thomas Madar, Marc Segar, Leanne Hayes, Mary Anne, Jolly Rodger (God knows what his real name is), Miyamoto Musashi, Bruce Eckel, Robert Louis Stenvenson.

Parting thought: "To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give It." - John Churton Collins.

"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is." -

Last Revised: 2002-april-16th.