[img credit – PRIDE MAG]

Preparedness is not only about stocking up on hard assets to weather the storm. It’s also about acquiring knowledge and developing skills.  The only problem with this is that preparedness is such a large domain of information that it’s even hard to be a “jack of all trades”.  In order to effectively combat the loss of critical information, preppers need to store knowledge for when they need it.

Preparedness knowledge (not talking skills at this point) is acquired through a whole variety of mediums:

• Books, magazines & other paper sources
• Person-to-person transfer
• DVDs
• Internet articles
• Internet videos

With the “hard” forms of knowledge retention (e.g. – books, magazines, DVDs, or notes taken learning from another) it’s easy to store them away for future use.  However, we all need to be mindful that internet freedom is something that may not be present in the future.  Whether the internet is unavailable due to power outages or cyber attack, or if the internet is severely limited by government authorities, we need to store information we find useful.

This is such a common-sense and easy tip that I pondered whether I should even write about it.  But the truth is, most preppers are not doing this.

What do many preppers do when they find good videos or articles on the internet?   They bookmark the site or subscribe to the channel.  However, if the internet was no longer available, that is all lost.

Make it a habit to do these simple things:

1. Save valuable Youtube videos on your computer.  A very nice FREE software I use is Youtube Song Downloader.  The title is misleading because it downloads video as well.  This is one of my most practiced ways of saving information I find online.  Seeing is so much better than reading.
2. “Save As” web page articles.  In Google Chrome, just click on the menu button in the top right corner and click Save Page As. Other web browsers have similar “save as” features.
   
3. If you get information via email, make sure you are not viewing it only on the internet (e.g. – google gmail, hotmail, etc.).  Set up Microsoft Outlook to sync with your mailing address so there is a hard copy stored on your computer.
4. Categorize files on your computer into preparedness buckets. Some limited examples:
   1. Food
      1. Recipes
      2. Hunting
      3. Trapping
      4. Wild Edibles / Foraging
   2. Water
      1. Purification
      2. Storage
   3. Medical
      1. Hygiene
      2. Dental
      3. Internal medicine
      4. Surgery
      5. Etc.
5. Have a back up!  We all know that computers crash.  Instead of using an online cloud service to back up your files, get an external hard drive that attaches via USB to your computer.  They are super easy to install.  Most of them only require you to connect the hard drive to the main computer and it will install all the necessary drivers by itself.
6. And last but not least, knowledge is nothing without putting it to practice and developing your skills.  While it’s near impossible to practice everything in the realm of preparedness, at least try things out to get a handle on how difficult it is.