Wow Mr.C, I'm impressed with just how many questions you got into a one sentence post there!
Let's start at the end - preparing for good SA. I think that flight preparation is where much SA starts - a good OFP, well marked up chart, anything you may need in flight put immediately to hand, whether that's a protractor, sunglasses, approach plates...
Next is always thinking ahead of the aeroplane, or to put it another way, having a good picture all the time of where you are in your plan. Work to always be routinely cross-checking that you are where you think you are, and make the adjustments to get you back on your plan small and early.
Having done all that, lookout and cockpit checks are fairly obvious and fundamental. Slightly less so is getting any radio calls in as early as possible, and at the same time, monitoring everybody else's so that you are adding that into your mental picture of what everybody else is doing about you.
And a lot of this is good CRM, but so is for-example using your passengers to help with lookout, helping pass you things - or when flying solo, having a good well ordered cockpit with everything to hand, making use of ATC to reduce your workload (perhaps upgrading to a traffic service when flying through congested airspace or marginal visibility). So is making sure you are fit and up to the flight, considering your own fitness, did you get enough sleep last night? make sure you didn't drink much last night also? Have you recently reviewed the charts and POH to keep anything from catching you unawares? This is all CRM, and just as applicable to a solo flight as a big crew.
G