Pennsif's Progress #606 - Dreaming of nothing, or very little at least
I love organising. I love sorting out. I love getting rid of things.
I dream of a being a minimalist.
But I am a prepper. I have a wife and three children. I run a business. I accumulate things.
Lots of things.
Accumulate | Hoard. There is a dangerous line between those two words.
As I prepper I accumulate. You need to store as much as you can of most things.
The key I believe is good organisation.
Organisation helps you find things when you need them, and it stops you repeat buying when you don't need to.
Two of my main areas of prepping storage are food and medical.
- short life, perishable fresh food for current usage
- longer shelf-life and dried goods for current and medium term usage
- bulk canned and other long shelf life goods for medium and long term storage
- freeze dried good and MREs for long term storage
That needs to improve and get sorted very, very soon. It is important to have it well organised so I know what we have and we keep on top of stock rotation.
I am going to cover what I have in my medical supplies in a more detailed post in my medical prepping series but we do have a growing inventory of medical preps. First aid supplies, vitamins, water purification tablets, and more 'precious cargo' like antibiotics.
Currently these are all stored in two separate locations in plastic storage boxes. Not too bad but some stock-taking is definitely needed.
What about everything else...?
Clothes, books, business records, tools, craft supplies.... and all those bits and pieces that you just don't want to get rid of.
I am not big on clothes, and this is the one area I can probably reach minimalist nirvana quite quickly. I have specific targets of how many of each clothing item I need and I quite ruthlessly send any surplus that is worn out or doesn't fit to recycling.
Books are a more difficult one for me. I have a pretty ample library. But it badly needs sorting.
Business records are currently getting heavily chopped. I have everything stored electronically so a lot is going now.
Because the shelf holding the business files was collapsing my youngest daughter helped me fix it today. To do so we had to remove all the files. As there were returned to their after the repair heavy culling took place - almost a half of got the recycling chop.
That felt good.
As well as the efficiency gains, organising, sorting out and throwing out makes me feel good and lifts my spirit.
It makes me feel a little bit more that I control life, and not the other way round.
This summer's project, with my youngest daughter on the payroll, is to really go on an organising and minimalising purge.
You won't recognise the place come September.
So much will be gone. So much will be better. And I will be feeling on top of the world.
While you are here check out these to see what else I do :
The Alternative Lifestyle Show - Friday 20 July 2018 - with @surfermarly [recording]
Pennsif's Progress #607 - 6 months on and the radio waves to everyone
My Life In 8 Songs - 19 July 2018 - @breakoutthecrazy, @anarcotech & @klynic [recording]
Headlines that caught my eye... 19 July 2018
SteemRadio - schedule of all the steem radio shows - week beginning 16 July 2018
A Dollar A Day charitable giving project : Fundraiser Thanks to @lyndsaybowes
Pennsif's Live Sustainability Curation Digest for MSP - week ending 15 July 2018
[ main graphic from unsplash.com // food tins photograph by @pennsif ]
Yeah i know what you mean. It's almost a full time task keeping on top of things, maintaining supplies, rotation, training and even monitoring events.
But, sounds like you have a system; and at the end of the day you will have a greater longevity period than most.
Nice post!
Organiation is key when prepping. But so is the desire for minimalism. There is definitely a fine line between accumulating and hoarding. We do a cull about once every six months. What hasn't been used is usually recycled or as my son says, upcycled to a better home.