There's a lot to unpack here. I think a much better method is to recognize that if you have trouble figuring out a gift for a person, you either haven't put eno

There's a lot to unpack here. I think a much better method is to recognize that if you have trouble figuring out a gift for a person, you either haven't put enough thought into it, or you don't know the person as well as you might like. > "I love X author" This is fine as long as you realize they probably own all of author's works and maybe even pre-ordered the latest release. Find something unique (signed copy? first print? copy signed by the author's rival? rare statuette of their favorite character?) and gift them that instead. > "I'm getting into Y hobby" This can be a minefield. If you personally know something about the hobby this can work. But if you find yourself saying "The minimum wage employee at Best Buy told me this widget was the best one", you're gifting an obligation to use what might be an inferior product or one that doesn't meet their needs or expectations. It might even be one they ruled out for themselves. Additionally, researching widgets might be one of the things they enjoy about their new hobby. > "They have complained about a slow computer that you know you can upgrade the ram/ssd" and the list goes on. This is the key refinement of your gift-tracking idea. You've leveraged what you know about the world and about the person to gift them something they want or need and may not even know is possible to get for themselves. > I think back to a dog seat cover I got for a friend after hearing them talk about taking their dog hiking a lot. I was on the receiving end of this exact gift and it is one of the gifts I appreciate the most to this day.