For IT professionals, there is all kinds of preparations that we have learned are essential, if not extremely wise:

• As my friend Tom (SQLRockstar) says, having backups is job #1
• Also from my friend Tom, knowing how to perform a recovery from those backups is what will make you a hero
• Testing a process (upgrade, install, migration, etc) before running it in production
• having current versions and data in a sandbox, development, and QA environment so you aren’t doing all your work in production
• …and more…

But the first step in any preparation is CHOOSING to do it.

The work of preparation is physical. But the act of it is mental. If you have chosen to prepare – whether “…for the worst”, for the weekend cutover, or simply for the day – then the hardest part is already done.