Video Title
Free Inventory Assessment PDF | A Starting Point | Prepping for Non-Preppers #BetterPrepared
Video Description
Understanding where you are is critical to know where you’re going. When it comes to prepping and preparedness figuring out “where you are” and “where you’re going” can seem like overwhelming tasks. We created this Inventory Assessment to help you chart your course by establishing your current state.
This FREE 2 page PDF worksheet guides you through some basic questions to help you focus and understand your current level of preparedness.
Page 1: This page walks you through some of the important questions around logistics and establishes the size and scope of your plan (what are you preparing for and how many people do you need to account for).
Page 2: This page helps you understand the gear that you have and how you might prioritize it in a disaster. Using P.A.C.E. and some time range suggestions, you will be able to visually see where you have weaknesses and be able to prioritize them as you see fit.
This is ultimately a self-assessment tool, so there is no grade at the end, but it will provide you with a means of organizing your starting point, and then monitor your progress moving forward.
Link to FREE Inventory Assessment PDF
Video
Click Here to see more Videos about Prepping for Non-Preppers
Video Transcript
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have you been watching the news seeing
all of the natural disasters that have
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happened over the last few weeks and
gotten real concerned about your level
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of preparedness what would you do what
do you have how prepared am i well a lot
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of people are and a lot of people have
messaged me about it and said where do I
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start
oh my goodness I need help well today
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I’m really excited because we are gonna
dive into our inventory assessment
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worksheet which is a free pdf that we’re
gonna walk through and will hopefully
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help you solidify your framework for
preparedness and give you a little bit
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more confidence as you begin your
preparedness journey so stay tuned and
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we’ll go through it here in a second
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hey everybody welcome back to cascade
today I’m Casey and today we have a very
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exciting episode we are going to dive
into our inventory assessment PDF
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worksheet that is available for free the
download link is in the description
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feel free to download it and then you
can follow along with us if you are new
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to the channel and you are interested in
these sorts of topics which you probably
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are please go ahead and hit the
subscribe button in the notifications so
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you will know when we put out new videos
we usually put out new videos every week
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so we would love to have you viewing and
watching and sharing when we do that so
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you’re probably wondering what is our
inventory assessment PDF download
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checklist for you to use well it is a
two-page document that we created that
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walks through some basics on kind of
level setting your level of preparedness
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so it is an inventory assessment not
only of your gear but also kind of your
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planning your state of mind what you’re
thinking how you want to do it and then
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building forward off of that so why do
you need a an inventory assessment
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worksheet to help you with your
preparedness journey well
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when most of us are starting out on our
preparedness journeys it can seem like a
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daunting and overwhelming process there
are so many checklists there are so many
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recommendations there are so many things
to get and you can kind of get lost in
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well I need to get everything I need to
prepare for everything what am i doing
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well as we’ve addressed in some of our
previous videos on what to prepare for
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and who you’re preparing for and we have
a playlist on kind of starting your
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preparedness journey sometimes you need
to kind of just sit down and really map
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out what it is that you need to do what
is your goal and then everything else
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kind of falls into place so this
inventory assessment is not a checklist
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it is not designed to say get these
twelve things for your bug out bag it is
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really more to help you crystallize what
it is that you’re trying to do where you
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want to go and then baseline where
you’re at to identify what you still
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maybe need to get maybe what you have
too much of where you want to go what
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are your next steps and help you
prioritize that and then this worksheet
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will then be kind of a it’s an evolving
process so you’ll probably do this once
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and
maybe you do it again in three months
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and maybe you do it again in six months
but you always want to be updating it
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and keeping track of kind of where you
are and how close you are to your goals
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so the first page is about crystallizing
the framework of your preparedness
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journey the first couple of questions
are around what are you preparing for so
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are you preparing for an earthquake
hurricane some sort of other natural
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disaster is a job loss
what is that focus and primary event
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that you are most concerned about and
then also how many people are you
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preparing for who are you preparing for
are you preparing for your immediate
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family are you preparing for neighbors
community members are you dealing with
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two people or are you planning for 12
people it’s really going to impact how
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you think about strategies and gear and
resources we have videos that dive into
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both of those topics which I am linking
to up above right now that you can dive
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into more we’re going to be creating
videos around more of this stuff as well
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so again it’s a reason to subscribe if
you haven’t already
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the next section on page one is around
logistics so who are your out-of-state
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contacts and do you have out-of-state
contacts if there’s emergency who is
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your kind of communication Nexus outside
of the disaster area where you and your
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friends or relatives are going to be
funneling information back and forth
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because likely you won’t be able to
communicate directly with each other
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unless you have some sort of a satellite
communicator or ham radio or something
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like that so you’re gonna want somebody
who can be that kind of communication
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Nexus for you
how about emergency documents you know
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we all have things like driver’s
licenses birth certificates social
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security cards where are those are they
accessible are they organized do you
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know where they are and if they are
current things like passports can expire
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so where are those and are those easily
available and accessible to you
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emergency cash this is something that a
lot of people especially now with credit
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cards you know very few people I’ve met
actually have cash on hand but in an
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emergency if credit cards don’t work
you’re going to want to have some cash
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on hand
so do you have cash on hand you have it
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with you do you have it in your car do
you have it at your house is it in a
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safe how much do you have what are you
planning on doing with it do you want
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living expenses for a month if you
needed to evacuate in cash or are you
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just hoping to be able to buy supplies
with it while you stay bugged in for a
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couple of days those are the sorts of
things you want to be thinking about in
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that section the last section of page
one talks about special considerations
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so these are things that are specific to
you they could be things like within
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your geography and your climate what are
things you want to be concerned about
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does it snow a lot does it rain a lot is
it super hot you’re gonna want to make
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sure that you have those types of
situations accounted for in your plan
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you don’t want a plan like you’re living
in the Arizona desert but actually be
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living in the Oregon Valley where it
rains all the time you don’t want to be
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planning for sunny California if you
live in Minnesota and it’s gonna be
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below freezing and snowing for part of
the year so you want to make sure that
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you have taken that into account you
want to make sure that if you have pets
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and you need special you know you need
pet food you need special supplies for
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them that you have that accounted for if
you have a medical condition or a
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disability of some sort how are you
planning for that and you’re not gonna
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want to make realize that you need a
prescription medication when the
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pharmacies aren’t working so do you have
a backup of some prescription medication
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do you have an extra wheelchair battery
or do you have a charger that can charge
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a wheelchair battery if that was
something that you need it so those are
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the sorts of things that we kind of
round out and then when you look at all
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of the questions that we’ve asked it
kind of gives you an idea of what are
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what am i doing who am i doing it for
what are the things that are specific to
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me and then that heads in to the next
section the second page of the inventory
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assessment is probably what you were
more expecting from an inventory
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assessment which is more of like a
checklist but it’s not a checklist it
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really is a worksheet it doesn’t tell
you what you should have or what you
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shouldn’t have this is about giving you
ideas and letting you kind of assess
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where you are right now and then where
would you like to be and identify your
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gaps
or surpluses as they may be the table on
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page 2 is organized using the pace
method across the top so the columns are
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organized by primary alternate
contingency and emergency and I’ve given
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some rough timelines to those the way
that pace works is it’s a prioritization
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system where you are planning on what is
your primary maybe in this case let’s
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say gear so what’s your primary piece of
gear what’s your secondary piece of gear
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what’s your alternate piece of gear and
then what’s your emergency piece of gear
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so if you were thinking about food your
fresh food in your refrigerator might be
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your primary your alternate food maybe
whatever is in the freezer that’s got a
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thaw out your contingency is maybe your
canned goods and then your emergency is
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maybe freeze-dried or kind of dry rice
and beans that you would be reheating
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the idea there is you have kind of
timeframes associated with whatever the
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item is your familiarity with the item
and then also the duration of the
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emergency as to how long that item is
going to need to last you as you look
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down the rows you’ll see that each row
is a category of gear or supplies so
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things like food and water and shelter
are all there and then next to them are
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examples of items that you might
associate in that category things you
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might want to have and a rough kind of
prioritization of what might go into
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each of the categories within pace so
you may have water bottles as your
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primary and you may have gallon jugs as
your alternate and then you might have
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55-gallon drums as your contingency and
emergency it’s totally up to you the
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examples are there to give everyone a
baseline idea of what might go into a
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category like this and allow you to
think about other things that might that
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might work at there as well and then
also to give you an idea of what are the
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different types of things that might go
in there as it relates to pace so you’re
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not just thinking about the thing you’re
familiar with but also thinking about
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well what might an emergency item here
look like or what might a longer-term
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solution be
whatever the category is now that we’ve
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addressed how the the table is filled
out it’s time to actually do the filling
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out which is the fun part so the way I
would recommend is to go row by row
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category by category and fill out each
category across all the columns do your
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best
this isn’t a test no one is grading you
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but the idea is to understand
realistically what you have right now
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what are the supplies that you have in
every single one of these categories and
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how would you think about laying them
out from a priority perspective using
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pace in some instances you may have one
thing that you put in all four
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categories or two categories like
shelter you may put a tent in primary
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and alternate and you might put a tarp
in contingency and emergency you could
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probably use them for both but it maybe
gives you an idea of the priority there
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for food you may have two or three
different types of food that you would
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want to lay out and this gives you an
idea of how you would start to think
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about that so your refrigerator or
freezer food is probably going to be
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first in your primary then you’re gonna
have alternate which may be canned goods
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or packaged goods and then you know
emergency and contingency depending on
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what you have could be dried food could
be more canned food could be
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freeze-dried food so you could have very
easily in the food category four
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distinct options whereas maybe in
shelter you would only have two and
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that’s totally fine fill it out this
kind of first time as best you can with
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what you have okay so now that you’re
done it’s time to put your pencils down
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and send it in for your grade nope just
kidding
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we’re not gonna grade it nobody’s gonna
grate it the only person is gonna grade
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it is you and it’s gonna be graded based
on your level of comfort with whatever
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your kind of table looks like I would
definitely recommend going through it
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and circling any item where you think
you are either lacking or could be doing
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better whether it’s an area in a
category whether it’s an entire category
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whether it’s a specific time interval or
a prioritization level but circle use a
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red pen if you want to all of those
areas where you feel like you could use
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improve
and that then is going to be your plan
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so as you look at this you’ll be able to
visually see very quickly where are you
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strong and where are you weak and
probably you didn’t realize how strong
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you were in a lot of areas and you also
probably didn’t realize how weak you are
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in a couple of areas so it’s going to
help you orient based on then your plan
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from page one and you’re kind of deer
assessment of page two of really where
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do you need to go next and what does
your preparedness journey look like
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going forward do you need to add more
supplies because you actually have more
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people than you thought you did and
you’ve been planning for four and you
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actually have eight do you need to add
different types of equipment do you have
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kids that you know actually yeah you
want to have a headlamp for all of the
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family members but the adult headlamps
are too big for the kids and so I
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actually I need to go out and get some
kid headlamps those are the things
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you’re gonna start to recognize and then
prioritize based on kind of your own
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comfort what you’re preparing for how
you want to do it and we really how you
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want to fill out this this chart so that
is gonna do it for today’s episode again
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I’m really excited to share this
assessment with you I think it’s gonna
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help a lot of people always ask me where
do I start I don’t know I feel
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completely unprepared hopefully this
gives you a means to really understand
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and get control of that kind of fear and
overwhelming feeling and say actually I
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may not have everything I want but I’m
better prepared than I was or that I
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thought I am and I have a plan forward
this is something I would recommend that
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you do either every three months every
six months and you know you probably
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don’t need to do it every day because we
all have lives and things going on but
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it’s a good thing to kind of go back and
look at and just see what have I
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accomplished in the last three months or
six months what has changed what are my
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priorities going into winter going into
summer are there different things that I
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want to put at the top of that list what
are the things that I want to be looking
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at when there are sales every season has
different kind of preparedness items
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that go on sale and if you know what
you’re looking if you know
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what you’re missing you can then do a
better job of trying to find deals and
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coupons and sales for the things that
you feel like you’re lacking to boost
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00:14:07,920 –> 00:14:13,320
you up overall so thanks again for
watching again there’s a link in the
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description down below if you’d like to
download the assessment and take it for
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yourself
if you have any questions please go
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ahead and leave them in the comments
below you can get on social media and
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message us there as well subscribe if
you haven’t already we’re gonna be
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putting out additional videos talking
about each of these categories talking
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about pace talking about kind of all of
the different elements that went into
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this as well as we are working on some
checklists they’re not going to be your
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standard checklist because I’m not a
huge fan of standard checklist I feel
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like they kind of get a little
overwhelming but we’re putting together
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some sort of a checklist that will kind
of be an augmentation on top of this
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that you can go in and kind of use so
again stay tuned stay subscribed and
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thanks again we will see you next week
bye