Prepping Principle by David Fidler, Series Part 7

This is part 7 in a seven (7) parts.

Sixth Principle: Planning.

The old saying “If you don’t plan to succeed, you are planning to fail” is very true. Planning how, what, who, where, why is so important. This is a principle that again costs virtually nothing. It is also one that requires you to be flexible and make necessary adjustments as you go. In the Army we have a saying “No plan survives the first bullet”. You will find that as you gain more knowledge and skills your plans will need to be modified. You will discard old ideas that you have learned are ineffective and add new ones that have a better chance of success.

You will have plans for just about every aspect of prepping. Plans for gaining knowledge, plans for gaining skills, plans for building up your food storage, plans for buying/acquiring tools, etc.

Keep in mind that a plan that is not written is only a wish. You have to write them down, put them on paper. Additionally, by the physical act of writing the plan down you are improving the chance that you will accomplish it. There is a whole psychological and physiological aspect to this which is crucial for success.

Remember above where I talked about PACE? Well, here is where you directly apply that concept. Planning for back up options is so important. Let’s look at a scenario where the power goes out, what do you do to prepare for that? Most end up getting a back up generator. This may be a good option unless the power is out longer than your fuel supply. Perhaps you have a Natural Gas powered generator, great unless the event is an earthquake and then they shut down the NG pipelines to prevent leaks and explosions. Maybe you decide to get solar power on your home, great except that what they rarely tell you is that if the grid goes down, those panels are set up to shut down so that they don’t feed power back into the system where someone may be working on it. See where I’m going with this? You should plan for alternatives, contingencies and emergencies. Perhaps your primary is the grid, but you then plan and set up an alternative solar system with battery backup. This is augmented by some wind turbines as a contingency and finally you set up a generator as an emergency backup.

Summary,

Prepping does not have to be the arduous and difficult task that many see it as. We as preppers need to simplify it and make it much more palatable to those who we are trying to sound the Voice of Warning to. We need to put away the Zombie Apocalypse scenarios and quit preaching the TEOTWAKI and get back to the basics. By making it a doable task, by helping others see the importance of it in their every day lives we can help others along and towards a better world where more are prepared and ready to support us in our efforts. This inevitably helps us prepare as well as reducing the burden of prepping by sharing it with others.