The 80/20 Rule of Prepping: Focus on What REALLY Matters First

By Karen Morris

Author of A Year Without the Grocery Store ,  The Prepper’s Printable Binder, and the website  Are You Prepared, Mama?

Do you feel overwhelmed by trying to get prepared?  The checklists feel endless.  There’s always another gadget, always another class, always another bucket of food that you need to add to your stockpile. 

At one point, someone gave me an Excel spreadsheet with a multitude of tabs at the bottom, which linked to every area of life and gave me a list of things that I “needed” that I couldn’t purchase all of even if I lived for two hundred years!  That didn’t help me!  It discouraged me!

80/20 Principle

But I found encouragement in an unlikely place.  One of the classes I’m teaching this year is called SOAR.  It’s all about study skills and helping students accomplish more in less time with less stress.  How many of us could use less stress?  I know I can! 

One of the foundational principles from this class was introduced by a man named Vilfredo Pareto: it’s called the Pareto Principle.  This principle says that eighty percent of your success comes from twenty percent of your effort.  The curriculum stresses that if we only focus on the twenty percent that brings us eighty percent of our effectiveness, we will succeed so much more easily – and with less stress.

The effectiveness of this principle doesn’t hold true just in study skills – it’s true for all of life!  Including preparedness!  During our time as preppers, we’ve suffered a job loss and inadequate employment.  I can tell you how thankful I was to have buckets of food on hand with basic ingredients.  Buckets of oats and wheat berries aren’t glamorous, but I can do so much with those basic ingredients!

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve used our portable fans.  Now these aren’t your small handheld fans.  These are portable, battery-operated 10” square fans that blow an incredible amount of air.  When my husband was working in construction up on a scaffolding, these worked incredibly well, keeping him cool.  When I sold my items at homesteading Expos, these fans were a lifesaver for our little group.  When the power went out at home, we were able to use these fans.

The Core 20% of Prepping

So, if we’re applying the 80/20 principle to our prepping, what is the 20% that we should be focusing on?

Water

Most people overlook this and go directly to food.  You can live three weeks without food, but you can only live three days without water.  There are so many ways to store water, from water barrels which hold fifty-five gallons, to water bricks which hold 3 gallons, to 5-gallon water containers with spigots, to gallons of water, to water bottles.  

The rule of thumb is that every person needs 1 gallon of water per person per day for drinking, cooking, and hygiene.

Food

When you are gathering food, I teach that you should put your long-term food storage into place before you put your short-term food storage into place.  Long-term food storage is food that will stay good for up to thirty years if stored properly.  Check out the list below.  What foods do you eat that are on this list.  Consider stocking up. Long-term food storage foods include: 

• Apple Cider Vinegar
• Beans (black, kidney, navy, pinto)
• Dried corn
• Freeze-dried foods your family often eats
• Honey
• Nonfat dried milk powder
• Oats (quick or rolled)
• Pastas
• Potato Flakes
• Salt (do not use an oxygen absorber)
• Sugar (do not use an oxygen absorber)
• Wheat Berries
• White rice
• Vanilla
• Grain alcohol

Seeds are not included on this list; however, everyone should include vegetable seeds in their preparedness food supply.

Multi-purpose short-term food storage items that are not on the list, but are often overlooked are:

• Oils
• Basic spices – these can be combined for other uses – i.e. taco seasoning, chili seasoning, gravy, homemade salad dressings etc
• Extracts
• Baking supplies
  • Baking powder
  • Baking soda
  • Cream of tartar
  • Arrowroot powder
  • Cornstarch
  • Yeast

Heating/Cooling

The necessities here will be determined by where you live.  If you live in the south, you need to focus more on cooling than heating.  If you life in the north, make sure you concentrate on heating.

There are different simple ways to heat your house.  Do you have a working fireplace?  That’s a great place to start.  If you don’t have a fireplace, there is a device called a “Big Buddy” heater that I highly recommend.  Make sure that you have hand and foot warmers, sleeping bags, and warm clothes.

If you live where it is hot, then focus on cooling.  Those battery-powered fans I mentioned earlier are a great resource.  Another item that helps keep you cool is called a Frogg Togg cooling towel.  When you get it wet, the temperature of the ‘towel’ drops by 30 degrees.  Another really easy thing not so much to keep you cool, but to help your body deal with the heat, is vitamin C!  Taking extra vitamin C can help your body handle the heat better.

Basic first aid/medicines

Let’s start with Vitamins.  Make sure that you have a good multi-vitamin on hand.  If you ever have to go without regularly healthy foods, that multi will help your body handle the loss of certain nutrients better because they will be replaced partially by that vitamin.

If you take prescription medication, make sure that you are working on getting a stockpile of your scrips.  

And just like the 80/20 principle applies to preparedness in general, it also applies to each part of preparedness.  What are the 2-5 OTCs that you use the most, that make the greatest impact, or that have the most uses?   Focus on those few and don’t worry about keeping the rest up to date.

Communication

Whether its every day or in an emergency communication is tantamount to our safety.  Again, let’s focus on the most important 20% of our communications.  Cell phones and an AM/FM radio.  

We all have cell phones nowadays.  That one item can be a powerful tool!  There are so many aps that we can download that help us in an emergency.  Here are a list of essential apps:

• Red Cross First Aid
• FM Radio app
• Weather app (I use Weather Bug)
• Plantnet Plant identification
• FEMA
• Useful Knots
• Wiser (hazardous material app)
• ICE – In case of emergency app
• Zell – Make your phone into a walkie talkie

Any battery-powered or crank AM/FM radio would be very useful and helpful to have on hand.

Distractions

Just like I teach in SOAR, one of the enemies to getting anything done is distractions – even well-meaning ones.  

What do preparedness distractions look like?  Ya know those fun checklists?  We all love them.  We all hate them!  Whether from me or from anyone else, take these with a big grain of salt!  Or, you’re browsing Amazon and you see that battery bank I was talking about earlier?  Every time you come across something ‘fun’ like that, ask yourself if you need anything on your 20% list first.  Do you need another five-gallon bucket of rice or beans or oatmeal before you buy that battery bank?  

Or even learning has distractions.  Let’s take the 80/20 principle when it comes to that.  What will have a greater initial impact – learning to cook from scratch or learning about medicinal herbs?  It’s not that learning about medicinal herbs isn’t important!  But what is most important FIRST?

Applying the 80/20 Rule to Preparedness

Using the five areas of preparedness mentioned earlier, create a top 5 purchase list for each category.  Then prioritize that entire list.  

As you create that list, ask yourself if a minor emergency came up in the next 30 days, would this item on my list help?  Which would you need – Multi-vitamins or a solar panel?

Preparedness Isn’t About Having Everything

Preparednes isn’t about having everything, it’s about having the right things.  So now that you have your list, see which items are within your budget each month and little by little make sure that 20% is taken care of.  Remember this 20% effort will give you 80% of your success.

Where do you focus your efforts? Do you use the 80/20 theory? Let’s talk about it in the comments section.

About Karen

Karen Morris:   Author. Blogger. Speaker. Christian. Wife. Mom. Teacher. Prepper. Trekkie. Aspiring Gardener. Organizational Nut. Reluctant Kitchen Engineer.  

She’s the author of The Prepper’s Printable Binder, A Year Without the Grocery Store, Mom on the Run, and Adaptive Prepping.