Where It All Begins A Plan For A Journey In Preparedness

Getting started in your journey of preparedness can feel like an insurmountable task when you're beginning or even thinking to begin. There are endless articles and videos out there telling to you to buy this and that, build a bug out bag, an everyday carry bag (EDC), mylar bags and oxygen absorbers and so much more. You can quickly spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars and have nothing but piles of stuff to show for it. I've been there before myself. At first I bought all the gear for a bug out bag but then realized I had no water on hand. I then realized I had all this gear but did I have the knowledge to use it all? Nope.

There's a saying I really love which is, "if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail." I truly feel this phrase holds true for most, if not all, things in life. But I think we can even zoom out a bit and say it as "if you fail to plan, prepare to fail." Plans help us organize the madness, the chaos. Sometimes planning feels like a task you want to resist like the plague and other times the thoughts, ideas and details all flow out like a river to the ocean. To help find a middle point between these two, I suggest breaking the areas you want to and should prepare for into small tasks, even if it's only one task a month. Completing these smaller tasks consistently will get you to your preparedness goal steadily and can be done in a way that won't break the bank or make you feel overwhelmed.

With that I'm going to share my latest plan at a high level and help you think about setting tasks for yourself to help get you ready for whatever future comes your way. Before doing so I just want to be clear and honest with you. I'm no guru nor do I claim to be any sort of expert in this area. I'm just a regular person, like most of us, trying to be smart with my resources and be able to keep my household running calmly, confidently and safely in some life event -- big or small.

Let's get into it.

The way I've been approaching and plan to continue to approach my preparedness journey is by breaking the areas I intend to focus on into individual monthly focus areas. For example, the first month you start you may decide to focus on water. So you have your area for the month to focus on and now you need to set a goal and/or task for this area. So you may say, "Ok, this month is all about water. I need to have enough water for myself and my family for 72 hours." So in that sentence you have your focus and your goal. Now you create the steps or tasks to get you to that goal which are done over the course of the month. That could look like the following:

Calculate the total gallons needed
Figure out where to source that amount and the total cost
Decide your storage location

Acquire the water resources

Those four tasks can be done however you wish over the course of that month. Working with that example, you could do one task per week and have your entire water category covered and not even feel like you really had to do anything at all. Low stress, simple and smooth. That's the goal here.

The following is how I am currently breaking down my focus area months:

Water
Food
First Aid
Power and Lighting
Shelter and Comfort
Communications
Sanitation
Security
Documents and Finances
Evacuation Plans
Skills and Training
Review and Fill Gaps

Those areas of focus are in no particular order and if you decide to use those same areas focus on them as you see fit. I will suggest though that focusing on finances early will make all of the others feel even easier to complete.

Over the next several blog posts, I plan to write about each of these in detail in regards to how I'm breaking each down and working towards accomplishing my goal(s) in each area so that you can either do the same or draw inspiration to create your own goals and ways to achieve them. We can all reach our preparedness goals and we can do it together by sharing what we learn and supporting each other along the way. So remember to plan first and also, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Let's get there together. See you in the next post.