Making Lists of Ten Ideas Per Day Is Sweet

I came across this article by Shaunta Grimes, which says:

I came up with ideas for friends. Ideas for silly apps I’d love to have. Books I want to write. Fairy tale tropes. Ideas for a new newsletter. Ten people I want to meet and how I can do that.

One of them was James Altucher, who writes a lot about the power of writing down ten ideas a day. I asked him if he minded if I included it as the I in WRITER. He didn’t.

My goal for this spring: Same as the last time. Just get back to writing my list of 10 ideas a day, every day. It’s on of the most effective habits I’ve ever had.

Ever since I came across that over a month ago, I have been writing at least one 10-idea list every day. The results are… splendid.

From the Guy Who Analyzes Local Votes

I have a neighbor who has been obsessed with local voting patterns for decades. After every election, he studies the results from every precinct. Last week, I attended the (online) neighborhood association meeting where he shared his conclusions about the most recent election. Practically the first thing he said was that Trump got more votes in our neighborhood, San Francisco as a whole, and California as a whole in 2020 than in 2016. He has never seen a Republican presidential candidate get so many votes in San Francisco. Trump did particularly well in certain (though not all) working-class neighborhoods with many residents of color. To him, this feels like the beginning of an important trend. He believes that if this trend continues, then Trump supporters are going to build a real power base in the city and increase their influence over local politics. He also went into more detail about the California-wide votes and how it reflects that California Democrat Party is losing ground.

What I’m Learning from Not Finishing Books

Two months ago I shared my resolution to stop finishing books which fail to engage me. My goal was to spend more time reading engaging books. I did not expect to learn so much about my reading experiences.

Before, when I tried to finish every book I started unless I couldn’t stand it, I didn’t ask ‘Is this book worth reading?’. Thus I read less attentively. Now, I pay much more attention to my engagement level. Wondering why I did not feel like continuing A Thousand Li after a hundred pages inspired this post.

I’m playing with where I draw the cutoff lines. Now I have two cutoffs: the hundred-page and one-third marks. The hundred-page mark doesn’t work for very long or short books; the first third may be too little or too much. Therefore, at both cutoffs I ask, ‘am I engaged?’

To Understand Voters, Understand Where They Grew Up

A few weeks ago, I communicated with a Chinese woman in Thailand who was shocked that most Chinese-Americans support Trump. I was shocked that she thought most Chinese-Americans support him, since I had presumed that a majority of Chinese-American voters would choose Biden.

Curious, I found this (pre-election) survey. Their results were that 56% of likely Chinese-American voters planned to vote for Biden, 20% for Trump, and 23% were undecided. I was right to guess that a majority of Chinese-American voters planned to vote for Biden, but that majority was smaller than I expected.

In my research, I found that Chinese-Americans who immigrated as adults were more likely to support Trump than American-born Chinese (ABCs) or Chinese-Americans who immigrated as children. This did not surprise me.