Getting out ahead of time

[Tarrel]

This is one of the toughest challenges of prepping IMHO. At what point do you start to "swim against the current" and act on developing events while everyone else is carrying on Business as Usual. I think it's a fine balance. Leave it even slightly too late and you're screwed. Remember how quickly panic-buying started at petrol stations when there was just a threat of a tanker-drivers' strike?

"Acting" need not necessarily mean bugging out. It may be that your plan is to bug in. Even so, one may have to take a decision to leave work, collect the kids from school, cancel engagements, etc.

Ideally one would exit the 9-5 lifestyle and take more control of one's time so that it was possible to act on your instinct without fear of "what the boss would think" if you suddenly decided that you were taking an unscheduled vacation at zero notice! Apart from that, I think it's a case of keeping the radar up and using one's judgement to read developing events. Of course, having preps in place means that you could potentially leave things later than if you had to react to an event by prepping from scratch. Just don't leave it TOO late!