I think you start with what you're wearing. Good boots and good layered clothes. I wear pack boots with liners so I can pull them out and dry them. I wear the modern poly underwear, and polar fleece base layers and wool outerwear. I have 2 sets of Columbia wool bibs and jackets I bought after one hunting season at Dicks for about $60 a piece! I always wear a hat and scarf. I also wear mittens. I love handwarmer packets! I pack a Gore Tex parka that rolls up pretty small and I always pack extra gloves and socks.
I carry a small titanium pot and pan with my "kit" in it which has strike anywhere matches, a lighter, and a fire steel. I also carry tinder. My film canister full of vaseline cotton balls. I carry 2 space blankets. The traditional kind and one the shape of a mummy bag you can crawl in. The extra little knife, compass, whistle, plastic poncho, mirror.... I also carry a sawyer extractor with a bunch of band aids and pills stuffed in the box. That and a Quick Clot trauma pack. I have carried a little Swen saw, and a little Fiskars saw. It has a plastic handle and weighs nothing. It cuts like crazy too and it probably weighs 1/10th what my Eastwing hatchet does.
You're carrying your house with you so investing in your clothing to me, is the most important thing. My biggest problem is working up a sweat and wet feet. Polypropylene and polyester underwear and base layers and wool outerwear all wick moisture away, and wool has the highest insulation value when wet. I can stop and change my wet socks. Hang my old socks on my pack and in an hour or two, they're dry. I've dried boot liners by the fire more than once. Getting wet and not being able to dry out is my #1 concern. A lingering concern for getting cut and bleeding to death is my #2. I've got a bleeding issue I found out about during minor surgery a few years ago, and it's been in the back of my head all the time. I've got a few trauma packs around. The truck. The boat. My packs... That's my philosophy anyway.
