Several weeks ago I received my copy of the seasonal magazine from Emergency Preparedness. I opened it up and skimmed it’s pages. Among the usual product features, something even better caught my attention. It was a 2 page spread that they called the “12 Areas of Preparedness“. Listed, they are:
1. Water
2. Warmth
3. Food
4. Light
5. Shelter
6. Tools
7. Sanitation
8. Power
9. First-Aid
10. Comms
11. Cooking
12. Planning
I liked their 12, but I think they missed two. The first isn’t a necessity, but I believe they are the things that could keep your sanity. The second is one that I guess you can’t purchase from Emergency Essentials so it makes sense that they wouldn’t list it. Since they didn’t ask me, and I didn’t ask them, I took it upon myself to name them. In sticking with their one word category titles, we’ll call them:
13. Comfort
14. Finance
While you can search for these “areas” of preparedness yourself, I have to say, I did appreciate Emergency Essentials clean cut approach to just giving us the goods. I like information in simple, to the point format. My inner organizational nerd went into over drive when I saw this and I thought it was a helpful tool to get the list and categories generated for those just starting or those looking to take some inventory of what they already have.
Linked here you will find both a printable and workable spreadsheet. The printable spreadsheet you can print off and use with the old fashioned pen and paper. You should know this is the one I like best. Call me old fashioned, I’m not offended. I use this for taking inventory of what I have now and writing in things I find I need to complete my preparedness in each category. The workable spreadsheet is one you can open in excel. You can add to it electronically, keep track of what you need vs what you have. Yes, you can use all sorts of color or highlighting tools to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, and it’s printable at whatever stage you want for those of us who like to do both. Have a workable sheet to add and subtract, and print when we feel we need a hard copy. Again, I’m still old fashioned, and I’m still good with it.