Ask Dr. Helen: Preparing for Disaster — Prudent or Paranoid?
Here are a few steps you can take to both give piece of mind and keep you from going off the deep end.
1. Make a list of ‘disasters’ likely to happen to you or your region. Put the most likely at the top, the least likely at to bottom.
2. Next to each disaster, describe how this will effect you.
3. Next to the effect, describe what reasonable steps you can take to mitigate the problem.
4. Next the the mitigation, make a schedule TO DO the preparation.
5. Follow through. Cross the problem off your list when you’ve completed the mitigation.
If you can’t define what you’re preparing for, you will never feel ‘done’ with the preparations.
Also, you’ll notice that preparing for the smaller, more common problems also makes progress
in preparing for the big ones. This can prevent the paralysis from feeling overwhelmed.
Bear
