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Our room at The Skirvin Hilton Oklahoma City.

When our family road-tripped across the country last summer, we stayed in numerous hotels.  Since our family travel budget does not afford for luxury accommodations we, like most families, look for clean, safe, affordable hotels with perhaps a few amenities like a swimming pool. Nothing fancy. It is always a nice surprise, however, to get a little more for your travel dollar–something wonderful you weren’t expecting. There were two hotels in our travels that delivered that surprise and spoiled us for the rest of the trip!

What made these hotels so special? The first one wasn’t really much to get excited about at first. It was located in a southern suburban strip mall next to a Spanish-language grocery store. The exterior was relatively plain but there were many cars in the parking lot. The other was an elegant, old-fashioned building in the downtown district of a large western city. What did these hotels have in common that so impressed us?

The rooms were stunningly clean! In fact, “clean” doesn’t really describe these rooms. There was no evidence that anyone had ever inhabited these rooms since they were built! The paint and carpeting were pristine, the linens smelled fresh and looked new, the furniture was dust-free and had not a scuff or scratch on it, the bathroom tile gleamed. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that someone just finished renovating the rooms one week before.

I looked and looked for any signs of imperfection in these rooms and I found none. None! I have never been in any hotel (or home for that matter) that rose to this level of fastidiousness.

So, naturally, it piqued my curiosity. What did these hotels (The Hampton Inn & Suites Knoxville, North I-75 and The Skirvin Hilton in Oklahoma City, in case you are wondering) have in common? It turned out they have the same parent owner: Hilton!

Hilton Worldwide is the parent company of 10 different brands of hotels:

• The Waldorf Astoria Hotels
• The Conrad Hotels and Resorts (named after Hilton founder Conrad Hilton)
• Hilton Hotels
• DoubleTree
• Embassy Suites
• Hilton Garden Inn
• Hampton Inn & Suites
• Homewood Suites
• Home2 Suites by Hilton
• Hilton Grand Vacations

It turns out that the entire Hilton hotel chain is franchised and therefore most of the Hilton hotels are owned by different investors. Hilton does offer a management services company, Hilton Management Services, that hotel franchisors can choose to use but they are not required to.

"The Hilton Hotel Madrid Airport - 2008." Photo by By UggBoy♥UggGirl. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

When you think of all the variables involved in managing the Hilton hotel brand it is almost astounding that Hilton can maintain the same high standards of quality from Tennessee to Oklahoma (and worldwide for that matter), particularly when it is likely the management of each hotel differs. Then, factor in additional complicating variables like the fact that most housekeeping employees are unionized and that cleaning and maintenance costs are expensive and have to be paid for by each hotel owner. You have to be pretty ambitious (and optimistic) to believe you can pull this off.

Conrad San Juan Condado Plaza Hotel, Room 508. Photo by vxla. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

Yet, Hilton does it!

How? We can guess a few management secrets from the Hilton websites.

1. Set the standards sky high.

“Hilton’s vision is simple, yet filled with promise and expectation. In a wide range of venues around the globe we strive to create a consistently superior lodging experience – one that earns the loyalty of our guests by surpassing their expectations every day in every way.”

–Hilton Development

2. Innovate.

“For each of its hotel products, Hilton strives to be the ‘best in class’. We rigorously analyze each market segment to determine which attributes the traveling public expects and desires, then incorporate those attributes into the standards we set for each type of hotel. Such standards are continually reviewed and updated to ensure that we maintain our competitive edge across all categories as well as maintain the integrity of the brand.”

-Hilton Franchise Development Brochure

“Hilton remains synonymous with hotel because of its innovative approach to products, amenities and service. Whether becoming the first hotel to install televisions in guest rooms or the first hotel in the world to earn both LEED and Green Seal environmental certifications, individual Hilton hotels always lead the way. Among its industry firsts, Hilton developed the concept of franchising hotels, launched the first airport hotel, introduced the first multi-hotel reservation system and became the first U.S. coast-to-coast hotel chain. After more than 90 years, Hilton’s expertise and insight of global travel remains unmatched.”

–About Hilton

Current innovations:

“The HILSTAR reservations system is one of the most technologically advanced reservations systems in the hotel industry.”

–Hilton Development

“Our new Hilton Breakfast is a breakfast offering that will meet each and every guest’s request for the taste and service-style they prefer. This includes breakfast on-demand that offers both à la carte and menu selections. It is a comprehensive buffet featuring a descriptive ‘Follow Your Color’ guide providing an easy way for health- conscious guests to choose their individual breakfast based on basic nutritional labeling (e.g., low fat, low sodium or high fiber selections).”

“New Hilton Fitness by Precor presents the latest equipment for a more personalized workout. Every Precor elliptical, treadmill and bike comes with its own TV screen and headphones.”

–Becoming a Hilton

3. Rigorously inspect and monitor your progress.

“We will protect the value of our brands. . . . We will not compromise on the quality of our brands and hotels. . . .

“[E]very Hilton hotel is required to meet brand standards for quality and service as outlined in our comprehensive Hilton Brand Standards manual. To ensure that those standards are met, our quality assurance specialists regularly inspect each Hilton property, evaluating the hotel not only from a brand management point of view, but also from the guest’s perspective.”

–Hilton Development

4. Be a demanding but fair business partner.

“Our core business principles are based upon such timeless values as teamwork, fair play, mutual respect and open communications. Franchising is a two-way street, and we understand that our franchise owners have expectations of us, just as we have expectations of them. . . .

The long-term health of our brands depends on [a commitment to product and service quality]. In the guest’s mind, a brand is only as strong as its weakest property. Rigorous enforcement of standards helps both of us.”

–Hilton Development

5. Spend money to make money.

What are those brand standards exactly? How do they get the bathrooms so spotlessly clean? We have a few clues from the Embassy Suites operating standards that specify simple things like how often to wash duvet covers and pillows and rotate mattresses.  But the real meat of these operating standards appears to be in the investment in maintenance and décor that a franchisee is required to make, including updating the room furnishings at least every 10 years and making substantial improvements every year.

Revamping the hotel every 10 years and making incremental maintenance every single year is a huge financial responsibility for the owner. This is probably the secret as to why Hilton hotels look so good. If you adopted this approach in your own home or business, you would be doing the equivalent of a whole-house remodeling project every 10 years. While most people probably upgrade a room or two every 10 years, the whole house is beyond most people’s budgets.

Why would anyone incur such an expense, particularly a cash-strapped hotel owner facing lower occupancy during hard economic times? Hilton’s strategy appears to be that their standards never compromise, no matter how difficult or expensive it may be to meet them. It is a gamble that appears to be paying off. Because Hilton hotels are known to have such high standards, they can easily charge a price premium over other hotels. Even in heated competition, Hilton doesn’t have to be the lowest priced hotel. Their investments in cleaning and maintenance continue to set them apart.

For our own family’s travel, I now do book with a Hilton bias. While I always check the hotel’s reviews on a site like tripadvisor.com.  Hilton hotels tend to have consistently strong reviews and usually include a comment about how clean they are.

What is your experience with Hilton hotels? Were you as impressed as we were? Could you stand up to the scrutiny of a Hilton franchisee? Please share in the comments.

The discussion of perfectionism this month is not just limited to personal traits displayed at home. Perfectionism has broad impacts in professional settings as well. Two such industries are professional sports and occupations involving life and death decisions, such as law enforcement and the military. The results of extensive research in these areas suggest that even in the professional context, perfectionism has to be closely monitored and, if left out of control, can have damaging effects.

Professional Sports

Army-Navy Basketball Game. Image from the Wikimedia Commons.

There is probably no industry more concerned with perfectionism than professional sports. Athletes have to maintain an extraordinary level of achievement and their physical performance is often linked to significant monetary impacts for themselves, their teams and their sponsors.

A whole field of sports psychology that is devoted to exploring what motivates professional athletes to excel in their respective sports. While there are many studies of perfectionism in sports, one key study by a team of European researchers (Oliver Stoll, Andreas Lau and Joachim Stoeber), found that perfectionism in sports has benefits.

[A]thletes with both high levels of striving for perfection and high levels of negative reactions to imperfection showed the greatest performance increments over the series of trials.

The findings suggest that perfectionism is not necessarily a maladaptive characteristic that generally undermines sport performance. Instead, when learning a new training task, perfectionism may enhance performance and lead to performance increments over repeated trials.



–Abstract, “Perfectionism and performance in a new basketball training task: Does striving for perfection enhance or undermine performance?,” Oliver Stoll, Andreas Lau and Joachim Stoeber

Based on this type of research, you might expect trainers and coaches to start developing a breed of uber-perfectionist athletes, satisfied with nothing less than perfect performances. However, you may be surprised to learn that almost no one takes this view. Experience has shown many coaches and trainers that perfectionism has its limits. For a few perspectives in this area from a variety of sports, see below.

There are some advantages of perfectionism such as having a strong work ethic, commitment to your goals, and a willingness to learn and improve, which often disguise this mental roadblock to success. It can also help you achieve a few goals quicker.

However, I find that perfectionism presents more disadvantages than advantages when you enter into competition.

–Lai Yin, “Don’t let Perfectionism in Golf be your Mental Trap,” Mind Your Golf Blog

With the expectations of perfection a runner will train harder and longer, both of which are fantastic, but there will come a point of greatly diminishing returns. Overtraining can set in and chronic fatigue, both mental and physical, leads to lower levels of performance and a reduced capacity to train. How does the perfectionist respond to the fatigue and poor performance? He or she reverts to what gave them success in the first place, that being train more and train harder. Rest is not an option because rest means you are not working toward getting better, and for the perfectionist, that can lead to a high level guilt.



The running perfectionist will tend to blame themselves personally for every poor workout, every poor race and every sluggish recovery run. At some point the running perfectionist begins to tie their self-image and self-worth to their running. As result, poor performance equates to the perfectionist being a poor person, at least in their mind. Because their self-concept is so closely tied to running they begin to have high levels of fear of failure.



Even when the running perfectionist does run well, they don’t really enjoy it. Nothing is ever good enough and there doesn’t seem to be any level of satisfaction. The perfectionist must do even better. The pressure of perfectionism robs the runner of enjoyment from running and makes them feel miserable no matter how their running is going.



–RunOhio, “Perfectionism: A Recipe for Disaster”

In my own bodybuilding career, my aim has changed from a perfectionistic, Lombardi-inspired “winning is everything” attitude to “competing against myself.” My goal is no longer first place. I don’t care who I beat or who I lose to. I really don’t even care if I get a trophy anymore. My goal is to be better than I used to be. Every time I step onstage, if I look the best I have ever looked, then I’ll feel like a winner no matter where I place.

–Lori Braun, “Quest for Perfection. Desirable or Unattainable?” FemaleMuscle

Roger Federer was an obsessive perfectionist when he was younger and often “self-destructed” during matches. His biography, The Quest for Perfection, explains how Roger’s game suffered from his constant desire to hit perfect shots, and how he later changed his way of thinking to focus on more realistic expectations.

–Tomas Mecinger, “Perfectionism in Tennis,” TennisMindGame

One bodybuilding coach even advises taking individual personality traits into account when designing a training program. For perfectionists, the following training methods are advised:

• Design a program that emphasizes small, achievable, attainable, goals. Encourage contentment upon completion of these smaller goals. The perfectionist individual should be happy with what they have achieved, not unhappy with what they have not.
• Encourage team sport, to teach the value of teamwork to absorb the stresses associated with perfectionism.
• Factor in relaxation techniques such as meditation and visualization.

–David Robson, “How Your Personality Affects Your Training,” bodybuilding.com

Being a good coach, trainer or athlete therefore requires one to strive for enough perfection to improve skills but not so much as to impede performance through fear of failure, overtraining and lack of rest.

Public Safety Professions

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers. Image from the Wikimedia Commons

Other industries concerned with perfectionism are the public safety professions, particularly law enforcement and military organizations. How does perfectionism manifest in these professions? In public safety professions, there is a bright line test for success and failure, i.e. life and death. The consequences of failure are permanent and emotionally fraught. Therefore, avoiding failure is essential for self-preservation, team or unit preservation and achievement of your professional obligations. It is not hard to see why perfectionism is a problem in these professions.

Dr. J.R. Slosar who has studied perfectionism in law enforcement officers provides the following additional insights into the problem.

Police officers are expected to be in control and can develop a constant need to be in control. . .

Socially prescribed perfectionism, involving high and unrealistic standards from others can be inherent in law enforcement work. . . .

Another aspect of perfectionism that develops from feelings of intense self-scrutiny and high standards and expectations is an attitude of competition. The competition is a result of intense self-criticism and criticism of others, often not overtly expressed or seen, and channeled instead into competition. An important question is if law enforcement training breeds and fosters competition in trainees and then reinforces an aspect of perfectionism. Through competition, the intensity of perfectionism and over-achievement is heightened, resulting in some trainees who become “rising stars” by winning the competition battle. Placed on a pedestal as a winner, an experience of failure can literally lead to a dramatic fall and demise.

–J.R. Slosar, Ph.D., “The Role of Perfectionism in Law Enforcement Suicide,” Presentation to the FBI Symposium, September 23, 1999. In: Law Enforcement & Suicide, ed. By Sheehan & Warren, FBI Academy, Behavioral Sciences Unit, Quantico, VA., 2002, p. 539-49. Dr. Slosar is also author of the recently published book, The Culture of Excess.

Apparently, the pressure to be perfect is so intense among law enforcement officers that any experience of failure can trigger suicidal tendencies! Dr. Slosar suggests that the demands of the profession may require that law enforcement candidates be screened for perfectionist tendencies on application to the profession.

Taking a perspective from the outside looking in, law enforcement can . . . prescreen for perfectionism and attempt to screen out or re-interview persons who bring a high perfectionism factor to the job. Certainly bringing perfectionism to the demanding job environment puts one at greater risk for suicidal behavior in the future.

–J.R. Slosar, Ph.D., “The Role of Perfectionism in Law Enforcement Suicide,” Presentation to the FBI Symposium, September 23, 1999.

It should be hardly surprising that a culture of perfectionism also permeates our nation’s military forces. As author Mary Edwards Wertsch writes in Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress:

[T]he authoritarian military requires perfection of its members–in part as evidence of total compliance to the demands of authority– and the individual careerist reinforces this programming with personal ambition. The combination makes for extremely powerful conditioning.

–Mary Edwards Wertsch, “Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress”

So again, we see in public safety professions that there is a limit to the benefits of perfectionism. Perfectionism motivates high standards of physical fitness and achievement and helps diverse groups cohere. Too much, however, results in severe personal disappointment with the occurrence of any type of failure, to the point of suicidal tendencies and self-harm.

Learning from Athletes and Public Safety Professionals

What lessons can you learn from the above discussion?

1. If you are in a situation where perfectionism is required, do your best to encourage team rather than individual efforts to share the burden of perfectionism and give yourself adequate time for rest and relaxation.
2. Prepare for inevitable failures. Know what to do to mitigate damage and how to recover mentally and physically.
3. If you struggle with keeping your perfectionism in the healthy range, be very careful of putting yourself or loved ones in situations where perfectionism is prized. The mental strain can be too much. Professions or situations where individuality is prized over standardization may be a better fit.

Are you in a profession that values perfectionism? Please share in the comments.

If you have found it difficult to set and adhere to goals for yourself in your personal life, you may find it heartening to know that professional forecasters have many of the same problems when setting goals for some of the United States’ largest corporations. We can learn a lot about goal-setting, however, by learning some of the corporate forecasting strategies used by professionals.

As a brief background, companies with stock traded on one of the public stock exchanges typically issue formal statements on a periodic basis about their expected performance over a given period of time. This type of statement is usually called an “earnings forecast.” Preparing an earnings forecast is a difficult exercise often involving the input of numerous people throughout an organization, primarily sales, operations and financial managers. A variety of data is put into a financial model and various calculations and assumptions are made. (At a basic level, it is not unlike the work an individual might do to prepare a household budget.)

The final earnings forecast is essentially a goal for the corporation to achieve for the year. It might be communicated to the public as a target sales number or target earnings per share. Professional stock analysts then use the data in their own complex financial models for further analysis. At the end of the year, if the corporation does achieve the forecasted goal, typically its stock price rises as more investors clamor to purchase shares. If the corporation fails to achieve the forecasted goal, its stock price often sinks as disillusioned investors sell their holdings. Generally, the earnings forecast released to the public is a positive increase somewhat short of the actual goal so that the corporation can “surprise” the public with especially good news.

Due to the economic downturn, many firms have been unpleasantly surprised by the difficult business climate. Forecasting earnings (or losses in some cases) has become even more challenging than normal. As a result, some corporate forecasters have adjusted their goal-setting process with some of the following strategies:

1. Scenario Planning. Rather than calculating just one set of numbers for the year, a variety of calculations are prepared based on different scenarios. For example, a corporation might be concerned about consumer wealth and might have one forecast assuming the unemployment rate holds steady, one that it improves, and a third if unemployment worsens.
2. Rolling Forecasts. If conditions are changing rapidly and it is difficult to predict events occurring a long distance in the future, many corporations are electing to forecast for a shorter period of time and update the forecast more frequently. For example, rather than forecasting for an entire year, the corporation might forecast for one quarter (3 months) at a time and update the forecast each quarter.
3. Crowd Wisdom. Rather than restrict the forecasting process to just management-level executives, some companies are using web-based technologies such as Crowdcast to gather insight from their employees. These technologies poll employees for their opinions on issues such as the likely demand of certain products to customers, the impact of certain competitors and other key issues. The results are summarized anonymously and in some cases have shown to be up to 75% more accurate than traditional corporate forecasts.
4. Data Weighing. If a company is having trouble determining a course of action due to uncertainty about the likelihood of some events, it might focus in on known events and weight the forecast heavily on the items that it has the most control over. For example, a company might not know how many people will purchase its product but it can control how much it produces and its quality.
5. No Forecasts. Some corporations have essentially admitted defeat in their ability to predict the future and are not issuing earnings forecasts.

How can you use these strategies when setting your personal or small business goals? The following ideas incorporate lessons learned from professional forecasters.

1. Have a Plan for the Worst. Understand the major factors that could impact your life during your goal period. While it is not fun to have to think in the negative, all individuals should be ready to face negative circumstances. Some people avoid thinking in the negative because they are afraid to confront loss or admit failure. I find, however, that if you prepare a plan (much like emergency planning), you can move forward with the rest of your life much more easily. I also like to tell myself that if I have a plan for the worst, it is less likely to be needed–kind of like a good luck talisman. Some of the “worst” questions you might ask yourself are:
   *      What if I or my spouse lost my job this year? (or What if my business income declines substantially? or What if I still can’t find another job?)
   *       What if I have to incur a significant expense for _______? (Figure out what is most applicable to you. A health crisis? A major home or car repair? A significant business expense?)
   *       What sources of income do I have in an emergency? If “none,” what would I do if I had to file bankruptcy?
2. Consider short-term rather than long-term goals and continuous goal-setting. It is widely known that New Year’s resolutions sometimes seem overwhelming. A 90-day resolution may be more do-able. For example, one of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to “lose weight.” Perhaps one could break this down into 90-day goals, such as “Exercise at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes.” At the end of 90 days if the goal is not being achieved, perhaps it is the wrong goal and needs to be re-set. It might be more motivating to scale it down to “Exercise at least once a week.” for the next 90-days. If that gets results, then scale up from there. If it is still not being achieved, the next goal might be, “Figure out why I am not exercising.” Continuing to have a goal, even one that is significantly less ambitious than the initial goal, has helped me progress on nagging projects and learn more about my own work-style.
3. Consider input from others in your goal-setting. Sometimes others with our best interests at heart have valuable help and advice to offer. You have to be careful, though. Goals are often very personal objectives and lay bare a lot of our own insecurities. Getting a lot of affirmations from people you trust about your negative qualities is not always helpful and you have to have a thick skin about this. Where input from others can be helpful, however, is when you are having trouble either identifying the source of a problem or how to solve it. “How do you deal with ____?” is often a helpful question and easier to tolerate than “How do you think I can better deal with ____?” –the answer to which almost no one wants to hear.
4. Focus your planning on what you can control. Sometimes it is easy to feel that you have control over nothing but there is always something that you have control over. You can choose to have a positive attitude. You can choose to work hard. You can choose to be kind to people and develop loving relationships with your friends and family. While these may seem like small things, they matter quite a bit and often future success comes from having the small things right.
5. Keep some goals private. Some of your goals may involve subjects that don’t need to be shared with everyone. While there is sometimes a motivating value to having a public goal, knowing that you will be ashamed if you don’t achieve it, some goals are better left unsaid.

I hope these corporate lessons have given you some food for thought this Monday. Please share in the comments any lessons you have learned about personal or business forecasting.  Any commenters this month can receive a Ruly thank you note if you email me your mailing address to info@beruly.com.

I am setting a goal for a thought-provoking week! Type to you on Wednesday.

When I first announced the Ruly Challenge for this month, one of the first private comments I received was a question about emergency food storage. Food is, of course, necessary for survival and getting rid of your food supply can trigger a sense of unease. Many sources recommend that we store extra food in case of emergencies. The problem is that there is not much specific guidance about what to store, where and how much.

Ready.gov suggests a minimum of a 3-day supply of non-perishable food that requires little to no preparation and is not salty. They provide a partial list of items like dried fruit and nuts but leaves the advice generic, “Choose foods your family will eat.”

The book, “SAS Survival Handbook: For Any Climate in Any Situation,” by John “Lofty” Wiseman, gives some general guidelines about how to store food (cool location, place not vulnerable to flooding, hurricanes or whatever disaster you are likely to experience) but also advises that “choice of foods will depend upon individual taste.” The book also makes the point that food does not have unlimited shelf life so whatever goods you plan to store, you need to be eating them and purchasing new on a regular basis. It also advises that you store multivitamins to ensure you are getting proper nutrition.

“[T]he main elements required for survival are food, fire, shelter and water. . . Food is rarely the first priority. Even in those places where it is difficult to find there are usually other problems to face first. . . . A person can survive for 3 weeks without food but for only three days without water. . . .”

–John “Lofty” Wiseman, SAS Survival Handbook

The book, “Be Alert, Be Aware, Have a Plan,” by Neal Rawls, devotes just one partial page to food storage and the advice is similarly vague:

“Emergency food should consist of items that store easily and have a long shelf life. Better yet, consider foods you have around the house all the time and consume and replace regularly. I’ve never stashed away canned meats or other strange items I don’t ordinarily eat. I figure if a disaster strikes, why force myself to eat lousy food?”

–Neal Rawls, Be Alert, Be Aware, Have a Plan

The book, “Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now,” by Irwin Redlener, does not discuss food storage at all! The number one item on his “Eight Principles of Citizen Preparedness” is:

1. Stay healthy and fit. I cannot emphasize this enough. In a serious emergency, people need a good reserve of physical and mental strength to cope. Boarding up windows or moving belongings to a safe place in a short period of time may be physically demanding. Escaping from a dangerous situation may be physically and mentally taxing.

–Irwin Redlener, Americans at Risk

Mr. Redlener does reference the National Center for Disaster Preparedness which advises in its “Model for Disaster Preparedness” that the most important food storage tip is to make sure you are storing plenty of drinkable water. As for food:

“[M]ost adults can survive without food for weeks . . . . There is no accepted standard of how much food to stockpile, or what type to have. You must decide.”

–Model for Disaster Prepareness, National Center for Disaster Preparedness

Growing up in my home state of Utah, I would be remiss if I did not also include a reference to the emergency food storage practices developed by the LDS (Mormon) church. The Mormons have long advised their members to store food. It appears the current guideline is 1 year(!) of food storage. lds.about.com provides a food storage calculator here where you plug in the number of adults and children you are storing for and it spits out a list of staples needed for 1 year of food storage.  The LDS food storage guidelines, however, seem best suited for someone who is not concerned about portability of food. If you have to evacuate, hauling around sheaves of wheat or large sacks of sugar will probably not be possible.

From my experience this month eating my fridge and pantry stores, I realize that it does not take much extra food to develop a stockpile. I had at least 15 days worth of food for our family without even purchasing anything additional! (By the way, we are still going strong but the supplies are dwindling. We have a ton of pancake mix to get through though. Flapjacks or waffles, anyone?)

Based on the disaster preparedness recommendations above, I think it is reasonable for our family to start storing approximately one month’s worth of portable food. Any more than that and I worry about the burden of monitoring the food supply and preventing it from going bad. In a true survival situation, we could probably stretch out this supply for at least three months if we didn’t eat every day or just ate one meal a day. If we also store a survival book with our food supply, we could learn how to hunt animals and birds or forage for plants to get us by a little longer.

So, what to store? My only experience in a disaster/survival situation was during Hurricane Isabel in 2003. During that hurricane, we lost power for about three days, which meant that we also lost water for three days since we are on an electric well system. Fortunately, the natural gas supply lines were not cut so we could still cook on our gas stove. We ate spaghetti at least once. Since the power was out, the fridge and freezer could be opened only rarely to maximize the cooling capabilities for the items inside. Most of that food went bad and had to be tossed. Several very large trees came down in our neighborhood blocking roads so the advice about being physically fit is appropriate. It takes a lot of strength to operate a chainsaw and haul even small parts of large tree branches. Even if a road was cleared, there was not much point in driving since all of the stores and restaurants were closed due to lack of power. Also, you had to conserve your gas since the gas stations were also without power and there was no gasoline to be had. After a day and a half sitting in the dark at home, fetching water from the stores in the bathtub and hot water heater, we got in the car and headed to Ruth’s house who, fortunately, had not been affected by the storm. Not much of a “survival” story but it was a good taste of the modern life concerns you have to cope with in an emergency.

Ruly’s emergency food supply list will be based on some basic meal ideas (cereal or oatmeal for breakfast, spaghetti, tuna fish sandwiches, etc.) for one month and the non-perishable (but routinely edible) supplies needed. I will post the list here at beruly.com later in the month if you want to use it as a guide for your own planning.

Although it was disappointing to learn that even the experts are not any better at food storage than the average person, it is also comforting to know that if you feel disorganized about your food storage methods, so does everyone else! Here’s hoping we can inject a little Ruly-ness to address this problem.

Have a disaster story to share? A survival tip? Comments are welcome.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and that you are continuing your efforts to eat from your fridge and pantry stores.  Remember, the more you eat at home now, the more money you are saving, the more space you are freeing up for yummy, fresh foods next month, and the less time you will have to spend cleaning out your fridge. Plus, you are doing a good deed for the planet as well.

Now that we have reviewed the organizational strategies employed by the food industry, you may be wondering how you can use these strategies at home.  Here are some Ruly suggestions:

1. When you get home from the grocery store, no matter how tired you are, make sure you put away all the groceries properly.  Take a few minutes to unpackage items like juice boxes, bottled waters, pudding cups, or bulk packages of items so that the foods are easily accessible and ready to eat/cook. “Face” the products so that the front of the package faces toward you like they do in stores.  This small routine has been a big help to me.  If your food/snacks are ready to grab-n-go/cook, you are less likely to get take-out because you are too tired to fix anything.
2. In general, store your food with like items together (ex. all the milk together, all the juice together, all the meats together, all the cereal together, etc.)  The newest purchases should be placed at the back and the oldest purchases upfront.  This will make it easier for you to see what you have and what you have run out of.
3. Store beverages in easy-to-pour clear containers or dispenser boxes so that you are encouraged to drink them and can easily see how much is left.
4. Consider purchasing pre-cut fresh vegetables and salads to save time, reduce food preparation waste and encourage you to actually eat the vegetables.  (Note, however, that pre-cut veggies are often more expensive so you will need to balance the expense versus the possible benefits of eating more veggies because they are more accessible.)  Alternatively, when you are chopping vegetables, chop extra into a clear plastic container so that the veggies are ready to use as sandwich toppings, in salads, etc.
5. When you put leftovers or meats in the fridge, attach a label with an “eat by” date.  Generally, leftovers keep for no more than 4 days in the fridge.  If it will take you longer than 4 days to eat the leftovers, package them for the freezer instead. It may be helpful to print this Food Safety chart and put it on your fridge as a guide or create your own chart based on the food items you frequently store.  This chart from the Dietary Managers Association has a more exhaustive list but is too big for the fridge.
6. Consider designating one space in your fridge for items that need to be eaten right away before they spoil.  That way, if you are looking for a snack, you will peruse those items first. You will also know which items to toss when you take out your garbage each week.

If you are on a diet or trying to encourage healthy eating (who isn’t these days!), use marketing strategies for food presentation and sales in your own home to support your own eating goals.  For example:

1. Eye-level placement – Put the foods you want yourself to eat at eye-level and the foods you should be saving for treats in harder to access places.  It would be interesting to note what you have at eye level now.  Are you eating the most of your eye-level foods or are you wasting this valuable space with frequently unused items.
2. Displays – Create your own special “displays” for items you need extra encouragement to eat or quick items to grab on your way out the door. Maybe a banana stand with fresh bananas, a bowl of fruit, packages of nuts, muffins on a cake stand, the traditional cookie jar, etc.
3. Loss Leaders – grocery stores often place an item on sale next to items with better profit margins.  You could use this strategy to encourage nutrition.  For example, put a bowl of dried fruit next to the brownies.  Make it easy for yourself to get back on track with good eating habits.

Below are some organizing tools that may also be helpful in your efforts.

	RubbermaidEasy Find Lids 36-pc. Food Storage Set
	Storesafe Dissolvable Food Labels (11-0004)
	Lock & Lock Storage 1 Gallon Large Pitcher
	Double Dry Food Dispenser – Silver
	Anchor Hocking Montana 1-1/2-Gallon Jar, Brushed Metal Lid

Keep up your excellent work!  In the next post, we will introduce a new monthly feature that you are sure to enjoy.  Type to you then!

As you are eating from your refrigerator, freezer and pantry this month, you may be amazed at how large a food stockpile you really have and wondering how you can better manage your food inventory in the future.  For some suggestions, we look to the business world, specifically, grocery stores and the restaurant industry.

“[M]arketers have put more thought into grocery stores than any other type of store”

–Kit Yarrow, consumer psychologist, quoted in “Grocery Store Displays Can Mask Higher Prices,” Associated Press, November 5, 2009

Grocery stores present food so that it appeals to us both visually and economically.  Some of these “secret” strategies include:

1. shelf placement
2. end stands and special displays
3. pricing that encourages bulk purchases
4. store brands versus name brand products
5. selective discounting.

The next time you are in the grocery store take a good look around at all of the merchandising strategies used.  What do you end up focusing on in the sea of merchandise?  To see an example of the marketing messages bombarding you in the grocery store, check out this video:

Restaurants also have lessons to offer on food preparation and service.  Fresh ingredients and a clean kitchen and pantry are the foundation of a good restaurant.  If you watch any episode of “Kitchen Nightmares,”  the first thing Chef Gordon Ramsay always does when he attempts to turn around troubled restaurants is clean out the “back of the house.” The video below is a classic clip comparing the cleanup required in a troubled restaurant with the pristine kitchen in Ramsay’s own restaurant. (Warning: Chef Ramsay uses some “colorful” language if you are sensitive or at work.)

Granted, a restaurant has some constraints on food preparation that we do not face at home, i.e. 1) the restaurant must always have enough of each ingredient to be able to make every item on their menu during all open hours; 2) the restaurant’s success will heavily depend on using fresh, unblemished ingredients; and 3) the restarauant cannot take any chances with foodborne illness.  At home, we can tolerate a shortage or lesser quality food.  The nature of restaurant operations therefore necessitates some food waste.

However, even restaurants have room for improvement in their food storage strategies.  Below are some suggestions to encourage food conservation from the California and New York waste management agencies.

Rotate perishable stock at every delivery to minimize waste due to spoilage.

Clean coolers and freezers regularly to ensure that food has not fallen behind the shelving and spoiled.

–”Food Service Waste Reduction Tips and Ideas,” California Integrated Waste Management Board

Consider using a computerized inventory tracking system to help better analyze inventory levels and spending while projecting future needs.

Improve purchasing and inventory control by installing order-tracking software to count the number and type of entrees, appetizers, desserts, etc. ordered each day.

Prepare a combination of recipes to use up all of a food product.

–NyCWasteLe$$, “Agencies & Schools,” New York City Department of Sanitation, Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling

Also, restaurants have recently began to embrace conservation in other ways.  The National Restaurant Association has launched a “Conserve” program aimed at helping restaurants become more environmentally friendly.  The video below highlights the initiatives made in this area.

So, how can you apply lessons from the food industry to help you organize your food supply at home?  We will discuss that on Monday.  Have a good weekend!