One eye-opener for me was a comment @Rossco01 made long ago after learning barre chords, that he just regards them as ‘normal’ chords. If they make the song easier/more natural to play I use them 
(B7 barre is almost always easier than open B7)
Some folk like @CT prefer to avoid them, playing only the notes of the chord you want, which also leaves the other fingers available to embellish etc
Because I’m a visual learner, I find it sometimes find it helpful to play through a song using barre chords, as it becomes clearer to me what the chord progression is and easier to memorise.
1 Like