I am fairly one of the anxiety-inducers, but in my defense a few years back I made a whole essay about manageable things people can do (for folks who haven’t seen it, check my pinned tweet).
Nobody wants to do it, bc it’s boring.
Organizing is like anything else: you have to decide what you want, and then work backwards.
No, no, not like this
Ask yourself: what is something SPECIFIC it could do
I'm not trying to be a downer stating this! It's a fact!
You cannot go from
1) You right now
2) You the bodybuilder
You need more steps. So think about what they are.
* Lift heavy-ass weights
But before you can lift heavy-ass weights, you have to
* lift medium-ass weights
And even
* lift light-ass weights
Get a notebook and a pen.
(I'm serious. Get a notebook and a pen.)
Circle your town name.
Draw a line underneath it, and write your political districts under that. If you don't know, you can probably look them up online at your county registrar's office.
City council, precinct, water board. Boring stuff.
Because this boring task is to weed out the lazy.
Turn the page and give yourself a nice double-page spread.
Now you're going to write about you.
Then do two columns.
One is INTERESTS.
The other is SKILLS.
Under SKILLS, list things you can do: professional and personal.
Does your religious faith matter deeply to you? List it.
Are you patriotic as hell? List it.
Unfailingly kind to cats? Put it up.
You are now going to ask yourself two questions.
1) "How can I use my interests to meet people?"
2) "How can I use my skills in cooperation with other people to shape the world?"
You are now a group!
Get them to grab a notebook and a pen and do this stuff, too.
Turn the page and write them down. These are 10,000 foot goals. You want to work up toward them.
Then turn back to your interests and skills.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot: on the page next to your 10,000 foot goals, write "ASSETS."
Maybe you've got a space you can use for meetings. Maybe you've got money. Maybe you don't just know about radios -- you've actually got a bunch of portable radios!
Say you're a conservative lawyer. You wish there were a big well-funded right-wing legal apparatus that sued the living bejesus out of Hard Lefty operators and infrastructure!
You do not have time, or money, or power for this.
You cannot make a well-heeled nationwide organization. You can make a local one.
What can you do?
You can raise money.
You can gather information.
You can teach people about their rights.
Local legal observer training? Is something a couple of local lawyers can do!
But is it one tiny step closer to that 10,000 foot goal than it was before? Yes it is!
Look at what you do, and what skills you have.
Maybe you've got a lot of time and you like research.
The mapping part can be literal; union organizers physically map the workplace and who works where.
Relax. Turn to your first page. Look at the word you circled.
You're going hyperlocal. Just focus on your town.
A community is less intimidating when you understand it.
If you like politics, here is a quick simple way to build community:
Political parties are kind of hyped up during election season, and they are looking for people.
So here's what you do:
Go back to that page. Then look up the contact page for the political party you're registered with. Drop them an email.
"Hi, I'm [NAME]. I live in precinct XXXX."
A walk sheet is a list of people in your neighborhood (you will mostly get one for your own party or for the independents).
Most people aren't hugely engaged. Many don't even remember their political party registration. (Seriously.)
But you might make a couple of friends who want to start a notebook, too.
It's good to have a 10,000 foot goal.
It's impossible to conquer your 10,000 foot goal in a day. Or a year.
So have a bunch of little goals. And if you pile them up, they stack.
The zeroth step is to learn to build communities again.
I am sorry you cannot go RAAAAGGGGHHHH and Hulk out and become Mr. Universe today.
So find a small thing you can do, and make some friends while you're at it.