This is the third half of the post on thinking.
PACE
I had never heard of it before, until I read a book by Gerry Schumacher (To Be a US Army Green Beret).
PACE is an acronym to help organize your thinking on your preparations.
Primary - What is the first way that you are going to solve a problem.
Alternate - What is the second way that you are going to solve the same problem
Contingency - The third way
Emergency - The very last way before you have to improvise a solution to your problem.
Let us look at an example.
Your problem, opening cans of food.
Primary - an electric can opener
Alternate - a manual can opener
Contingency - another manual can opener
Emergency - a P-51 can opener
Yes, I know an electric can open won't work in a power outage. That is why you have three other methods of opening canned food. It could be worse; you could have lost electricity and broken the manual can opener. Don't worry though, you still have the other manual can opener and the P-51. All of these methods have to fail before you start stressing about how to improvise a method to safely open your canned food.
The OODA Loop
I have heard of this decision-making process before. It helps you to focus on your problems/situations
Observe - make Observations about a problem
Orient - Orient yourself to the problem. What do you see as the problem/What information do you have about the problem
Decide - Decide what you are going to do about the problem
Act - Act on you decision
Then you go through the loop again until the problem is solved. There is an article at Wikipedia that explains the OODA Loop
I can use the OODA Loop to explain how this blog has evolved.
My problem/situation; I know I can't go it alone. I don't have time or money to be a doctor/nurse, welder/pipe fitter, farmer/rancher, and pull security 24/7/365.
Observe - no money, lack skills, people to join with, friends/family are starting to see the various situations happening and want to prepare. I am a doomer and a gloomer, this turns people off. Folks don't want to go over the basics, I think are necessary, in their survival-type blogs.
Orient - People don't have time because of 9 to 5 jobs to learn the basics of surviving a long-term emergency
Decide - I'll write a one entry per week for 16 weeks preparedness blog so people can take the time they need to learn about preparedness
Act - write the blog and get family/friends to read it.
Now I look at the results. I am unsatisfied, so ...
Observe - I have a lot of knowledge. The one entry per week for 16 weeks blog isn't working, for me. Low readership. Not enough people "taking the course"
Orient - I need to provide more information. Not advertising with others
Decide - I will ask some of the survival-type blogs for a plug, and I'll write more
Act - E-mail Ryan at Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest and James Dakin at Bison Survival Blog. Write an additional post for the week.
Again, I look at the results. I'm not satisfied, so I...
And the process continues until an acceptable outcome occurs. The OODA Loop can also be used in a tactical situation. I think this is the original idea behind the OODA Loop's development. It may help you to defeat your opponent, so read about the OODA Loop at the link.
Links:
Wikipedia - OODA Loop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_Loop
