Speaking from all the experience I have:
Get warm before you get cold.
Eat before you get hungry.
Drink before you get thirsty.
Get fire, food, and drink before you need to get warm, fed, and drunk.
Get a gun before you need it.
Backup your data before your hard drive crashes.
Get an education before you need a job.
Get a new job offer before you quit or get fired.
Earn money before you spend it.
Learn a new skill before technology makes your old one obsolete.
Detect the enemy, engage the enemy, and defeat the enemy first.
End relationships with toxic people before they begin.
Test your code before you ship it.
Buy precious metals before the government hyper-inflates the fiat.
Use strong passwords before the black hats break your weak ones.
Get gas before you get "E."
If you are asking yourself when you need to do all of these things and think that before is rather vague, let me give you the final and most important survival tip of them all: the only answer to "when is before?" that you can be sure of is right now.