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Been doing this for a while and it's so simple yet so effective. Also fun to just scroll through and remember things about people you love. My gift / interest lists are also a big driver for my pipe dream of a personal CRM or PSA. Would ideally have something like this built in.
> my pipe dream of a personal CRM or PSA That sounds like Monica HQ: https://www.monicahq.com/
What do you do if you genuinely don't want anything? It seems like people don't believe you and keep harassing you asking for what you really want, and then get really frustrated when you keep saying "No, really I don't want anything ". Then they either respect your wishes and don't get anything, but seem to harbor some kind of resentment against you in their heart, or they get some random garbage you don't want and…
Ask for consumables
This year everyone's getting an iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit. They might not need it now or ever but I like encouraging self repair (and often "self" ends up being me).
Interesting that they didn't really touch on what I consider the hardest part of buying for someone: domain expertise. If I am known as 'into' something, then the likelihood that someone who isn't also into that same thing will come up with a good gift is shockingly low. I bake bread, for example. A book of 100 bread recipes is basically dead weight to me. I have a friend who is really into knives of various sorts. E…
Since I know about knives, I would buy them a knife. If I was an accomplished bread baker, I would give them a couple of loaves each week for a month -- unless I knew they had a dietary issue. Don't buy a book about programming for a programmer; do buy the best book on programming in Python for a kid who shows interest.
btw: if you do know about knives, please hit me up at my email address and let me pick your brain a bit.
[Edit: my email address wasn't in my profile. fixed, but I'll reach out to folks shortly, thanks!].
Interesting that they didn't really touch on what I consider the hardest part of buying for someone: domain expertise. If I am known as 'into' something, then the likelihood that someone who isn't also into that same thing will come up with a good gift is shockingly low. I bake bread, for example. A book of 100 bread recipes is basically dead weight to me. I have a friend who is really into knives of various sorts. E…
My niece is an aspiring artist, and rather than trying to find out what art supplies she wants/needs, I got her a gift card to the art supply store that I know she shops at.
Of course, "when possible" is a key word here. Not every store sells gift cards, and sometimes the well-known stores aren't the best deals. Like, I might be interested in making fun electric gadgets, so a gift certificate to the Adafruit might seem like a good idea, but I tend to prefer to buy my stuff from Aliexpress or Banggood because the prices are significantly lower.
> I suppose the point of the article on this point is that if I just asked my friend, they would receive the value of the gift
Simply asking really is the best course of action logically, but the idea of gifts being thought up on your own has been so romanticized.
Stopped reading at 'Nobody Actually Likes Charity Gifts' I understand the social bonds of gift giving but this whole Christmas thing is completely out of hand, so much pointless consumption. The idea of gift giving at christmas is like a good instinct that has been hideously amplified to 1000x what it should be and turned into a monster. I pretty much insist on people giving me charity gifts most years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your post really struck a chord with me because I'm the type of person that likes to give books as a gift. As the type of person that would totally give a book of 100 bread recipes to someone that I just know "bakes bread," I'm wondering if you think there are book gifts that someone could get you using that mindset and just a little more thinking about depth of domains. One doesn't need to know anything about baking…
My intuition would be to not give a book on baking bread, but on something tangential to bread baking... like a book on brewing or other kinds of fermentation! Something that connects with their expertise but is new to both of you. If somebody is into knives, maybe gift a course on blacksmithing or some japanese whetstones.
But I've also been given knives a few times, and I loved most of them. It's not like you can have too many knives.
I'm not sure what I'd do with an extra set of whetstones though.
Best gift advice I give regularly: Keep a note on your phone (doesn't matter the app Apple Notes, Google Keep, SimpleNote, Drafts, etc) with a header for each person you want to get a gift for. Throughout the year whenever you hear them say "I love X author" or "I'm getting into Y hobby" then add a little note under their name. These can be as simple as "Coconut La Croix is their favorite seltzer flavor and brand" to…
In essence, Farley was Roosevelts aid and kept files on everyone he met so before meeting them again Roosevelt could cram study and "recall everything about them" like they were a close personal friend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farley_file
For some reason this is how I think of Google/FB/et al keeping info on people.
When I was 10, I really enjoyed Monopoly with my friends, but my parent's set was missing pieces and just overall in bad shape, so I asked for a new Monopoly set for Christmas. My grandma bought me Monopoly Junior, which was an entirely different game, and I was actually upset by it.
Years later, when 3D accelerator cards were coming into existence, I really wanted a 3dfx Voodoo card, since so many games required Glide (OpenGL and Direct3D hadn't caught on quite yet) which was a 3dfx proprietary API, and instead I got a Rendition 2200.
The article mentions considering what YOU want, but that can backfire. My dad loved electronic gadgets, and wanted to buy me a GPS device in 2010. I had to show him how pointless that could have been since I already had an Android and had Google Maps in my pocket. A few years ago, he bought me this weather monitor that attaches to the roof of my house, with a little tablet-like display to put on my wall or whatever, and it never left the box. Why would I need this $100 device to tell me the current conditions when I can just pull out my phone?
Interesting that they didn't really touch on what I consider the hardest part of buying for someone: domain expertise. If I am known as 'into' something, then the likelihood that someone who isn't also into that same thing will come up with a good gift is shockingly low. I bake bread, for example. A book of 100 bread recipes is basically dead weight to me. I have a friend who is really into knives of various sorts. E…
When possible, this is when gift cards are great. My niece is an aspiring artist, and rather than trying to find out what art supplies she wants/needs, I got her a gift card to the art supply store that I know she shops at. Of course, "when possible" is a key word here. Not every store sells gift cards, and sometimes the well-known stores aren't the best deals. Like, I might be interested in making fun electric gadge…
I'd rather use them as a last resort, for people I don't know so well.