The purpose of this field excursion is to get you to think about the concept of retail compatibility at the scale of your own shopping behavior. What sorts of things do you arrange to do on the same trip? Why do you group them in the way you do?
Pick one day to observer your own shopping behavior. Obviously, this will have to be a day on which you DO go shopping.
On the appointed day, keep a journal of every single time you venture out of your home. Note the date and time of day and record the places you visited and the order in which you visited them. What was your mode of transportation (car, bicycle, walking) and the path you took on your rounds? How many places did you visit on each trip? What did you do at each "activity node"? Did you buy anything or shop to gather information for a future purchase anywhere? What did you buy at each place you made a purchase?
Write a short report (1-2 pages), in which you analyze your own shopping patterns in light of the questions above. Append your field journal. Why did you pick the particular stops you made on each trip out of the house? If you made more than one trip, why hadn't you visited some of the stops on the earlier trip(s)? Draw a crude map of your travels on that day, using a different color for different trips (if you made more than one foray out of doors). Judging from your own behavior, do you think that there are certain kinds of purchases and stores that seem to go together naturally and others that seem to repel one another?
As always in my classes, good writing mechanics are important and will count for a quarter of your grade on this exercise. Pay attention to organization, spelling, grammar and sentence structure, punctuation and capitalization, and avoid sexist usage.