Started my first Algorand Governance and was blown away how it felt like a true defi experience. This is how I did it for beginners.

The entire experience felt like how I think a defi system should work. You basically commit the amount you want on their site, vote ( mandatory) and keep your funds ( in your wallet) for the 3 months; there is no sketchy site to connect to nor have to go through any exchange. Your funds are not tied up: this is a very important point here. In case you need the emergency funds its your money so you can just spend it - you will however forfeit the rewards but its better than most where your funds are completely inaccessible. Also bonus you dont have to go looking for your own validator which could be a chore onto itself. Extra bonus: while your funds are sitting in your wallet it is still collecting the auto airdrops from algro. Here is a step by step.

1. Read the FAQ, very straight forward. https://algorand.foundation/gov-faq

2. dont know what the return of rate is for period 2 but here is a calculator for period 1. https://algorewards.github.io/ . Looks like about 13.5%

3. Get a wallet or it also works with cold if you have one and consolidate all your algo in one place.

4. go to the main goverance page, https://governance.algorand.foundation./governance-period-2

5. connect your wallet and chose the what you want to stake, remember you can't change this afterwards.

6. and, thats it. Make sure to vote and keep the amount you commited.

7. also make sure to save a least half an algo for gas and what not.

8. I just realized that while the coin is in the wallet you still get the daily apr

9. make sure to go to faucets once a week and get extra algo so that it can take whatever you accumulated and compound it. Here is a good one here, https://algodrops.org/faucet

10. last day to signup for goverance 2 is on Jan 7, 2022 so you need to do it by then if you are interested.

In summary staking does not require anything other than to commit to certain amount; during an emergency your funds are not tied up but you do forfeit your reward. There are no validators to check; no one person to depend on. Your wallet cold or hot is yours and you can do what you want with it. and you could and need to vote. Overall looks and feel very democratic and also importantly it felt safe and the faq was very clear.

edit some below shared a stat link, https://www.algorandstats.com/governance-period-2looks great and its about 19% payout at the moment; this would go down as more people join.

edits again, based on excellent suggestions below.

1. to avoid accidentally double commiting whilst using the likes of yiedly, you can actually partition your wallet ( I have not done this myself but I guess is similar to metamask creating multiple wallets?) and used the secondary to do farming/mining/trading.
2. if you are worry about voting you can defer to consensus or to another governor.

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