Do you prefer cooking/baking with a recipe or improvising?

[I ? Guinea Pigs!]

My mom and I both love cooking/baking, except my mom likes to improvise mostly on her cooking. She doesn't use timers or recipes for most foods unless it's a special thing like cookies, cakes, etc. She just kind of throws stuff together. It tastes really good, but I like recipes. I hate just throwing things in and making something, because I like to have exact measurements. I use the timers all the time. It's like if I don't have a recipe, I'm sort of lost at how to make something, even though I've been told I'm a good baker.

What do you prefer? Recipe or no recipe?
Yeah, my mom has just been baking a while I guess it's natural for her. I just don't understand how she can do that without recipes!