When the first UK lockdown began in March 2020, most of us assumed it would last a few weeks. We’d sit at home, watch a bit more television than usual, and life would quickly return to normal.
For many people, it lasted far longer than that. And looking back now, with the benefit of hindsight, a striking number of people reflect on that period with a quiet sense of regret — not about the big things, but about the small, practical things they simply hadn’t thought about in advance.
This article isn’t about blame. Nobody could have predicted exactly what was coming. But the regrets people share from that time are genuinely useful — because they point directly to the things that, if thought about in advance, would have made the whole experience significantly less stressful.
“I Wish I’d Had More Food In”
By far the most common regret people express is simply not having enough food and household supplies when the lockdown began.
This isn’t about hoarding. It’s about the difference between having a well-stocked kitchen that could support a family for two weeks, and a kitchen with three days’ worth of meals and an empty cupboard behind every door.
In the early weeks of the first lockdown, supermarket shelves were stripped bare within hours of restocking. Delivery slots disappeared for weeks. People who relied on regular shopping trips found themselves genuinely struggling to feed their families. Elderly or vulnerable people who couldn’t leave their homes waited days or weeks for basic supplies.
Those who had quietly built up a modest reserve of tins, dried goods, and household essentials barely noticed the shortage. They simply cooked from their cupboards while the panic died down.
The regret isn’t “I should have panic-bought everything in sight.” It’s far simpler than that: “I wish I’d just kept the kitchen a bit better stocked.”
“I Didn’t Have Enough Medication”
For anyone who takes regular prescription medication, the lockdown created a situation that many had never thought about before: what happens when you can’t easily get to a pharmacy?
Surgeries and pharmacies remained open throughout, but the systems were overwhelmed. Ordering repeat prescriptions became difficult. Delivery times stretched. Some people found themselves rationing medication they’d expected to reorder without difficulty.
People with conditions like asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, or mental health conditions found this particularly stressful. The medication itself was available — it was just the logistics of getting it that broke down under pressure.
The straightforward lesson here is to try to keep a small buffer of any essential medication, and to make sure repeat prescriptions are ordered a little earlier than strictly necessary. A two-week buffer can make an enormous difference if supply chains get disrupted, even briefly.
“We Hadn’t Talked About What We’d Actually Do”
A surprising number of people look back and wish they’d had even a simple family plan before the lockdown began — not an elaborate emergency strategy, but just a basic conversation about how their household would function if things went sideways.
Questions that caught people off guard included: What would happen if one person became seriously unwell? Who would look after the children if the usual arrangements collapsed? How would elderly parents or relatives be supported? Who was responsible for keeping supplies topped up? What would the children do all day if schools closed?
None of these questions require dramatic planning. But when they arise suddenly, in the middle of a crisis, they become genuinely stressful. Families that had even briefly discussed these kinds of scenarios in advance found themselves much calmer when the moment came.
A single family conversation — half an hour, perhaps over a cup of tea — can turn a vague anxiety into a workable plan.
“I Didn’t Know Where Anything Was”
This one might sound trivial, but it came up repeatedly. When people suddenly needed things like torches, first aid kits, spare batteries, important documents, or basic tools, a significant number of them simply had no idea where those things were.
Some households discovered their first aid kit was hopelessly out of date. Others couldn’t find their home insurance documents. Some had torches with no batteries. Others had important medications in a drawer they hadn’t opened for two years.
The lockdown created an extended period at home that, for many people, became a slow audit of what they actually had — and more often than not, the answer was less than they thought.
Knowing where things are, and making sure the basics are actually working and up to date, is one of the simplest forms of household preparedness there is.
“I Should Have Looked After My Mental Health Better”
The physical and practical regrets are perhaps the most obvious. But many people reflect on the lockdown and wish they’d taken their mental health more seriously from the start.
At first, many people treated the lockdown as a novelty. A break. A chance to slow down. But as weeks turned into months, isolation, anxiety, disrupted sleep, and low mood took a significant toll — often before people realised what was happening.
Those who did better tended to have a few things in common: they maintained some kind of routine, they made deliberate efforts to stay connected with people they cared about, they got outside every day even if only briefly, and they were honest with themselves and others when they were struggling.
The regret many people share isn’t that the lockdown was hard — it was hard for almost everyone. It’s that they didn’t build in those simple habits early enough. By the time they recognised what was happening, they were already several weeks into a low mood that would take time to shift.
Looking after your mind during a period of prolonged disruption isn’t self-indulgence. It’s just common sense — and it matters every bit as much as having enough food in the cupboard.
“I Wish I’d Had Cash At Home”
This is one that surprised a lot of people. In a world of contactless payments and online banking, many households had simply stopped keeping any physical cash at home.
During the lockdown, this became a problem in unexpected ways. Some local businesses — small shops, market stalls, independent traders — were cash only. Some elderly neighbours needed someone to pick up shopping for them and had no way to repay digitally. Power outages in some areas briefly knocked out card payment systems.
It’s not about distrust of banks or the digital economy. It’s simply that cash remains a useful backup when the usual systems are strained. Having a modest amount at home — enough to cover a week or two of essentials — is a small, sensible precaution.
“I Didn’t Know My Neighbours”
One of the most touching things that emerged from the COVID lockdown was the flowering of community spirit. Mutual aid groups sprang up overnight. Neighbours who had barely spoken for years began looking out for one another. Local WhatsApp groups coordinated shopping for the vulnerable. People left groceries on doorsteps for those who couldn’t get out.
But for some people, the experience exposed just how isolated they had become. They didn’t know who to ask for help. They didn’t know who might need help from them. They had lived alongside their neighbours for years without any real connection.
Many people came out of the lockdown with a genuine regret about how disconnected they had become — and a resolve to change that.
You don’t need to be best friends with everyone in your street. But knowing your nearest neighbours, having a phone number or two, and having a basic sense of who might need support and who might be able to offer it — that kind of low-level community connection is one of the most valuable forms of preparedness there is. And it costs nothing.
“I Hadn’t Thought About Entertainment and Children”
For families with children, one of the most immediate challenges was simply keeping everyone occupied, calm, and engaged — especially once the novelty wore off.
Parents who had nothing in reserve — no puzzles, no games, no craft materials, no books — found themselves scrambling. Digital devices quickly became the default, often to a degree that nobody felt comfortable with. Children became frustrated and difficult. Parents became exhausted.
This isn’t about judging anyone’s parenting. It’s simply that nobody had thought about what they would actually do for weeks on end with children at home and nowhere to go.
A small stock of activities — board games, craft supplies, books, puzzles, seeds to grow on the windowsill — made an enormous difference to the families who had them. The children had things to do. The days had structure. The household stayed calmer.
What These Regrets Tell Us
Looking at all of these regrets together, a clear picture emerges. None of them are about catastrophic failures. None of them required expensive equipment or elaborate planning. They all come down to a fairly simple set of things:
Having a modest reserve of food and household essentials. Keeping on top of medication. Having a basic family plan. Knowing where things are. Looking after mental health from the start. Having a little cash at home. Knowing your neighbours. Having things to do.
That’s genuinely it. None of this is dramatic. None of it requires a bunker or a year’s supply of tinned goods. It’s just calm, sensible preparation — the kind that means that if disruption comes again, whether from a pandemic, a severe winter, or any other unexpected event, your household is ready for it.
The people who struggled most during the COVID lockdown weren’t the ones who were unlucky. They were the ones who, entirely understandably, simply hadn’t thought any of this through in advance.
The good news is that thinking it through is not difficult. And once it’s done, there’s a quiet confidence that comes with it — the knowledge that whatever happens, you and your family will be alright.
If you’d like to think through any of this in more detail, Preparing for Lockdown covers all of these topics calmly and practically — from food storage and medication planning to family communication and mental wellbeing. Available now on Amazon. Get The Book – Preparing for Lockdown