Never Give Up, Never Surrender

We’re a week into the new regime, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but information overload is becoming a problem. Focusing on what can be done and what you can do personally in the midst of lots of terrible things happening all at the same time is going to be the balancing challenge of the next four years.

In the wake of the energy of the Women’s March, “What’s next?” is the question going around.Twitter thread (hat tip to tielan ): So you just got home from your local Women's March. Now what

Lots of people and lots of websites are being set up to help walk folks through it -- and it’s almost information overload with all of these options. At the bottom of this post, I’ve put together a preliminary list of these. If you’re ready to jump in, feel free to skip ahead.

If you’re like me and struggle with picking the “right one,” I suggest a different approach.

Recognize What Your Limits Are

1. Are you going to have the spoons to call Congress people every day or do you need to limit it to once a week?
2. If you can't call, can you write letters or postcards?
3. Do you have the time, energy, or ability to get involved in an in-person group? If so what kind of time commitment can you make?

Answering these for yourself upfront will help you figure out what website/group is right for you, and more importantly set your personal boundaries so you don’t have to feel guilty for not living up to unrealistic goals. The goal is sustained action over four years, so do what you can when you can.

Make a Personal Action Plan

1. Once you've figured out what you can do and how often, write it down!
2. Figure out a time you can do it and make it a habit. Schedule it on your calendar. Google Calendar has email reminders for you to do the thing. I use Habitica, so I’ve added calling my Congress people to my Thursday Dailies to-do list.
3. Gather all the letter writing materials, phone numbers, whatever for the thing.
4. If you need motivation, find a buddy to do the thing with. We're looking into organizing virtual call partiesso stay tuned.
5. Make sure self-care is part of your action plan. snickfic 's 1/25 roundup linked to a really great article about this How to #StayOutraged Without Losing Your Mind (Medium).

Writing down a plan forces you to think through the steps and visualize yourself doing them. This can help get you to actually do them, if that’s something you’re struggling with. You are not alone - it’s hard to start a new habit like this.

Okay, now onto the resource list. I have not vetted these, so if folks can endorse, please do so, and add more in comments and I'll add them to the list.

Set it up and don’t think about it action from home
Donate monthly to an organization

Weekly action from home
re:act
Fight Trump
Democrats Abroad Congressional Call Storm for Americans living abroad
5 Calls
The 65: We're His Problem Now

Less than daily more than weekly
Wall of Us
My Civic Workout
Call Them In

Daily action from home
Any of the above sites giving weekly actions can be turned into Daily by repeating or alternating different week's scripts
DailyAction.org

Get yourself out there in your community
#JointheMovement
Dream Corps

By topic
Helps Figure Out What Organizations You May Want to Support
Holy Fuck the Election

Healthcare
Families USA

What Congress is Voting On
MegaVote



Feel free to add more in the comments. This will become an updated resource list.