Time, Effort, and Attitude (TEA) and Keeping Focus, by E in the North Woods

I think a lot of us who are doing our best to prepare for a SHTF scenario usually had some moment when we popped our heads out of the sand and were pushed to that point. I look back on it, like I have heard others explain, as the red pill versus blue pill moment from The Matrix movie.

Once you have your eyes opened and decide to take action in living a prepared lifestyle, it feels like you just got ripped from your comfy cocoon and are now standing at the base of a mountain looking up at all the ground that needs to be covered. Especially in the beginning, it can become down right depressing to think about all that you need to accomplish and with a newfound urgency (panic). You will likely at some point wonder if you made the right choice with that darn red pill and if you can just find that hole in the sand to reinsert your head.

Background

Some quick background on my continuing path. I took my red pill about eight years ago while living in a city in Colorado. Living in a suburban environment, I did what I could to begin climbing the mountain, thinking mainly about all of the thousands of steps it was going to take me to get some level of preparedness. I was frustrated by living in the city, frustrated that so many things I wanted to do didn’t make sense for city prepping.

I spent a lot of time wishing I could just make my way back to the rural life where I  grew up in the Midwest. With that frustration, I had lists of items that I needed to buy, lists of ways to store all the stuff I would buy, lists of things I needed to learn about the stuff I was storing that I was buying, and on and on. I probably could have made lists to keep track of my lists. It was maddening.

The Move Back To My Rural Beginnings

Earlier this year I was blessed and found a way to move my family away from the city and back to my rural beginnings, where I can make my preps permanent. That not only relieved some of my frustration but I now have learned a lot by both living in the city and now a rural area and how to manage prepping in both situations. The below is something I think through as often as possible. It makes my journey manageable, enjoyable, and I get things accomplished. It also has given me the ability to not have lists sitting everywhere. That, I have found, is the single most productive and focus-giving thing I have done this year.

Bombarded

Once you start your prepping journey, you can’t help but be bombarded by endless emails and articles with different gadgets to buy, food and medical items you absolutely need to store, garden greenhouse designs to build, ways to heat (or cool) your homes after electricity shuts off, et cetera. Now, the lists start. You have lists for food storage, lists for ammo and weapons, lists for projects to complete (rabbit hutches, gardens, et cetera), lists for how to get water supply and a secondary supply. Then there are lists for clothing and comfort items. The lists add up or at least get longer and longer, all adding even more steps to climb up that mountain.

I am not trying to say that you don’t need to do many of those things or that you don’t need to acquire many items to be prepared. You absolutely have to do many things to make progress on being prepared, and it is certainly a journey rather than a destination.

Three Steps and Three Ingredients Up Preparedness Mountain

What I am trying to do is to get and keep you focused on three steps and three ingredients to get you to your destination, rather than the never ending lists and steps to climb up the preparedness mountain.  If you can keep things small (3’s), you can focus. If you can focus, you can accomplish things and if you can accomplish things, you can be prepared.

Staying Focused on Three Areas

I like to stay focused by keeping my prepping focused into three areas much like I am sure many other people think of them. The important thought here is to focus on the three areas and not the individual items making up the pages of lists in the areas. I think about these three areas and try to do something to strengthen each area rather than allowing my focus to be on wading through and crossing endless items off a list.

The three areas that I allow myself to focus on are:

• Building (acquiring) supplies. These include items such as long-term food, tools, medicine, protection (weapons/ammo) for you and yours.
• Building knowledge. This involves learning how to do the many things needed to thrive. Don’t pick up the fiction novels as much, and rather spend the time on learning something useful for post-SHTF knowledge.
• Building skills. After you gain knowledge, the next step is to turn that into a skill. Learn (knowledge), practice (skill building), repeat.

Pick An Area To Work On

Pick an area to work on this week. Grab an item that will strengthen that area and put your efforts into it. Once you get more time, pick an area. Continuing this process keeps you focused without getting bogged down with the lists and climbing the mountain.

Need Things

Working on your areas is just like many other projects or tasks in life, you need some things to be able to get them done. In particular, you need time to do it, the effort needed to finish it, and most importantly the right attitude to support you. This is not really any different than the many other commitments we have in life. The difference between getting things done and getting stuck in a rut and throwing in the towel is keeping these three things in perspective and (once again) focus.

It takes Time

We obviously have limited time daily and weekly to fit in all of the things that need our attention in life. You have to repeat to yourself that everything takes time, and you can’t get everything done at once and very likely not in the time frame you would like. Just get this into your head– you will run out of time for many of the things you want to accomplish. Take a breath and understand that it takes time, and don’t let the clock ruin your attitude. The important thing is to continue to learn about how time is consumed, how to best use it, and how to do planning to allow for more of it without ruining your attitude or wasting your efforts.

It Takes Effort

Let’s get a garden ready this fall to be ahead of our goals for spring. What a great thought! Yes, it is, until you find out it is more effort than you thought and you now have a half done project dragging you down every time you see it. Sadly, I am getting further away from the strength and energy that I had when I was 18 years old. I find that I have only so much energy on a daily basis that I can put into different efforts.

If you have the time but are out of energy needed for an effort, this can really get you down and hurt your focus. Here again, take a breath and understand that you only have so much effort to spread around at any given time. Take a break before it breaks your attitude. Learn from it for the next project, and stay focused.

It Takes Attitude

You have probably heard many times that attitude is everything. And that is true, but there is more to it than just the words. The wrong attitude ruins your overall chance at progress and wastes your time and effort. If you can’t keep your attitude in the right place, you have no chance to keep focus.

When you get in a slump over the amount of ground yet to cover, sit down and have a cup of tea. 🙂 Remind yourself that it will take time, sometimes more than you would think. It requires a steady attack, not a blitz attack to try to accomplish too much. And, you need your attitude set right before it robs you of your time and spoils your efforts.

In closing, I know there will be those who will want to comment that it is good to focus on some things but you still need lists of all the many things. I don’t disagree in the slightest. I just keep them tucked away and not in my focus, and I only refer to the list(s) for the area that I plan where to accomplish something, and then it’s quickly put back away.

Also, a lot of this has been said before in different ways by folks with much better writing skills than me. I think though that we owe it to ourselves to bring it up again and again, as we have a great responsibility to ourselves and our families to keep them safe and healthy.

See Also:

• No Matter Where You Live, The Most Important Thing Is, by E-Grandma
• The Attitude of Survival, by B.T.

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

This has been another entry for Round 74 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $11,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

1. A $3000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
7. Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value), and
8. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

1. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
3. A gift certificate for any two or three-day class from Max Velocity Tactical (a $600 value),
4. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
5. A Trekker IV™ Four-Person Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $250 value),
6. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
7. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site.

Third Prize:

1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
2. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
3. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
5. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances, and
6. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).

Round 74 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.