If you're a regular reader of SurvivalBlog.com you've probably collected at least a few things as part of your preps – canned food, radios, firearms, ammunition, medical supplies, etc. When you first start prepping, knowing what you have and where it's located isn't that difficult – you can probably remember the contents of your bug-out bag, the canned food in the basement, a medical kit, etc. But as your preps continue to expand it becomes harder and harder to keep track of what you have, where it is and what you need to do to take care of it. Not knowing exactly where things are can slow you down in an emergency such as having to evacuate during a major disaster, and not regularly reviewing and maintaining your preps can mean something critical isn't available or working correctly when you need it most.

Like many folks I started keeping track of my preps using paper in a three-ring binder. As my preps grew this method became really cumbersome, so I switched to a Rolodex-style system, with each item written on a separate card and organized by storage location. The issues I ran into with any hardcopy system was that they lacked the ability to search for specific items, and when I re-organized my prep storage I had to spend hours updating the inventory documentation. Next I moved to a spreadsheet inventory system, which also eventually became a mess. I've also tried various databases and other software inventory tools, but nothing really worked well for me.

In previous articles I wrote on Field Intelligence Collection and setting up a Disaster Laptop I discussed the use of a note-taking tool called Obsidian for collecting and organizing various notes and documents. I've been using Obsidian as my primary note taking and organization tool on pretty much all of my computers and mobile devices for a few years, and during my latest bout of wrestling with how to best inventory and manage my preps I realized that it could also be used as a pretty nifty inventory system.