The habit of practice

Small repetitions

Once a month, cook one meal from the deep store and buy it again. Once a quarter, test the torches, change the smoke-alarm battery if it is due, and pour a glass from the water store. Once a year, walk the leaving route, check the first-aid dates, and read the paper list of phone numbers to see who has moved.

Put those reviews in Holdfast as inspect dates spread across the year, not all on 1 January. A single overwhelming Sunday is how the hobby dies.

Include people

The other adult should be able to find the stopcock, the gas shutoff, the kit, and the export of your inventory. Children can pack their own small bag and learn a phone number. Neighbours do not need your floor plan; they need to know you would knock.

If you export a JSON backup of your stores, keep it somewhere the inventory itself does not live, and refresh it after big shopping trips. A phone at the bottom of a flood is a bad filing cabinet.

Stop when it is enough

You are finished for now when you have water, a fortnight of food you will eat, light, a way to cook that you have used, a first-aid kit you understand, a sanitation plan you can say out loud, and dates in the log. More gear can wait. Fear sells buckets; practice eats soup. Log the soup.