Recommendations - Which To Take?

We get recommended things all the time. Our family recommends recipes to make and podcasts to listen to. Our friends recommend movies to see and books to read. And of course, the internet is constantly telling us that this show is a must watch and that pop up bar is can’t-miss-limited-time-must-see-event.

Even without social media it seems there is always someone telling us we’re missing out if we don’t take this recommendation. So I developed a system for dealing with them.

Let’s do the easy ones first. If I see something cool on social media that seems like fun, like a new bar or show - if I don’t love it enough to immediately book it or ask someone to go with me, then I put it out of my mind. If it is meant to be, it’ll show up on my timeline again and I’ll go through the same thought process. Most of the time, I never think about it again.

Next are recommendations from acquaintances. You might think these are easy. These people aren’t as important or close to you, so the simple thing would be to dismiss their recommendations as well. But let’s say you’re at a work happy hour and someone is raving about a new Netflix show. You should first ask yourself if you like this person or if you want to build a relationship with them, even professionally. If the answer is no, then simply tell them you’ve already watched the show, whether or not you already have. That response takes the wind right out of their sails because they can’t sell you on it if you’ve already watched it. Beware that this can possibly kill the conversation, but in this case, maybe that’s what you want.

However, if you like them and want to build a relationship. You should ask them as many questions as possible about it, and make a note of it for later. When later does roll around, you have a few options. If the recommendation actually did intrigue you, then watch the show. If not, look up the wikipedia page for it. This way, you get a quick rundown of the main points, some of the analysis, and you have a new piece of knowledge or something to bring up next time you see that person.

Lastly, are the recommendations from people close to you. This is the hardest category to deal with because in many cases, you do truly want to take the recommendations these people are giving you but it would be impossible to do so. The biggest culprits are movies, TV shows, and books so I have specific systems for those. I keep a note on my phone of all the TV shows, books, and movies that get recommended to me by close family and friends. If after 6 months, I haven’t watched the movie, I remove it from my list. I give myself a little more slack on TV shows and books because those are much larger time commitments. I will remove those anywhere from 8-12 months after I receive them assuming they no longer hold my interest.

For other recommendations, I still write them down but they don’t have as fixed of a time period. For example, if my mom recommends a recipe to me, she’ll love hearing my thoughts on it whether I cook it the next day or if it takes me two years to get around to it. Recipes, games, and actual material products have a much longer life on the recommendation shelf because they aren’t defined as much by current media trends.

Of course, it’s impossible to take every recommendation you receive, no matter how much you’d like to. Many may not truly interest you even though the person who recommended them does. Furthermore, it is extremely important to be able to discover things on your own and develop your own opinions rather than having something always filtered through the eyes of another first.

These systems work well for me because I do truly appreciate when people are passionate about something and want to share that passion with others. For example, I’ve gotten so many anime recommendations from my friend Ashley. Whenever I take up one of her recommendations, I feel closer to her. Even better is when we can watch one together and truly share in it. This feeling is definitely worth exploring recommendations.

But this system also helps me organize a seemingly insurmountable inundation of recommendations, and allow me to think critically about each one and whether it’s right for me to spend time on. Taking someone’s recommendation is a simple but powerful thing that can strengthen a relationship. On the other hand, people tend to give out recommendations pretty freely since they feel that most won’t bother with them - hence a lot of info to sift through. I believe sifting through it is worth it. I’ve turned down a ton of recommendations but the ones I’ve embraced have often led me to discover new facets of a relationships or new ideas for myself.

I’ve taken recommendations from every single one of these girls but the recommendation for this picture spot came from google