another Pinterest rant

Every once in a while I see posts about people who cried themselves to sleep because they saw a friend's Pinterest boards and knew they could never do all the things the person had pinned on Pinterest. I know I've said this before, but I think this is really odd because Pinterest is not there to show off all the things you have done. Pinterest is intended to be a visual way to find and keep track of ideas. If someone has a craft board, the pins there are most likely things that the person wants to remember so she can try them later. Today I decided to look through my pins and figure out how many of my pins are things I actually tried or used. Here are my results:

Recipes 36/82 (44%)

Recipes I Tried and Loved: 32/32 (100%)

Desserts: 11/94 (12%)

Breakfasts 15/39 (38%)

Snacks: 12/30 (40%)

Soup: 13/21 (62%)

Pasta: 16/41 (39%)

Bread: 7/16 (44%)

Things I want to Make 37/93 (40%)

Joy school: 13/37 (Although I've deleted some activities that I already used and didn't plan to use again) (35%)

To do with the kids: ~36/159 (23%)

To make for Me: 6/25 (24%)

Hair: 23/29 (79%) (Most of these pins were haircut ideas--I haven't tried most of the hair-do ideas.)

Three Month Supply: 11/25 (hard to quantify this one because I made this Pinterest Board to share for a RS class, so I didn't actually intend to do several of the pins) (44%)

Nifty Ideas: 10/43 (23%)

Family Home Evening: 1/4 (25%)

Clothes: 1/1 (This board had more pins, mostly shoes I was thinking of buying--and two pairs of those were ones I actually did buy--but I deleted the rest.) (100%)

Quiet book: 9/21 (Speaking of the quiet book, it's scattered all over the house and I'm questioning whether I want to keep it anymore, especially considering that the kids have spent less time playing with it than I spent making it.) (43%)

Parks to Check out: 3/6 (50%)

To think about: 9/10 (These are mainly blog posts I wanted to save and come back to later.) (90%)

Handwriting: 3/7 (43%)

Music Videos: 7/7 (100%)

Organization: 1/1 (100%)

SPD: 1/5 (20%)

Genealogy: 1/9 (11%)

Salads and Vegetables: 5/14 (36%)

School lunch: Honestly? 0/10 (0%)

Based on conversations with my friends, I think I actually use my pins more than most people do. Many of my friends have told me they hardly try any of their pins. As you can see, for most categories I haven't even tried half of the activities/recipes. But when I want to try something new I know I can always go to Pinterest and find things that I know I am interested in trying. I don't have to search through recipe blogs or cookbooks. If I am planning a preschool class I can keep track of all my ideas on a Pinterest board and figure out which ones I will actually use. And it's also easy for me to find things that I want to try again because I know what the picture looks like and what board it is on. I'm also very selective about which boards I follow because I don't want to waste time scrolling through things that don't interest me (like interior design).

Bottom line: If you want to use Pinterest, use it in a way that will be helpful to you. And realize that nobody does all the things they pin on Pinterest.