Planning Like a Puzzler

A few weeks ago, I saw my wife sitting on the floor with Emmett, our 4-year-old grandson, putting a puzzle together.  It’s one of those “big piece” puzzles for little guys like him. How adorable!

Before offering any help, she decided to see what his little 4-year-old mind would do on its own.  

He dumped the pieces, picked one up, and then another to see if they matched.  Of course, even with so few pieces, finding a match like that is highly unlikely and to a 4-year-old, very frustrating.  Mercifully, she decided it was time to teach him the right way, or at least get him started.

She then explained and demonstrated what most of us common puzzlers would identify as best practices for effective puzzling ­– which, as you’ll read below, works with time management as well.

First, you spread the pieces out so they’re flat and easy to pick up.  To complete your project or to prioritize your day, you need to clearly see everything in front of you.

Then you flip all the pieces to the picture side. Even more clarity. With it all laid out, you can see everything – you’re no longer up against the “elephant.”

Then you organize all edges according to the consistency of color and images – things that look like they might fit together with the picture. Your fog is clearing, and decisions are much easier.

With that strategy, you build the frame. Your priorities are in your schedule. What gets scheduled, gets done.

Then you organize the inside pieces according to pictures and designs.

For the 500-piece + puzzles, we adults often build the pictures separately and outside the frame. My mother-in-law used a spatula to surgically add the outside picture into the frame. It was impressive. I usually try to pick it up and slide it over the edge, often failing in the process.

That’s it. You have built the puzzle! That nagging project is now complete! And it wasn’t that hard when you decided to patiently build the puzzle the right way!

As you can see, it occurred to me that best practices in puzzling are a great lesson in time management. Most time management challenges aren’t about not having time. They’re more about how you understand your tasks and how to chunk them down into small pieces, organize, and schedule them. Then execute. And whala! The “picture” is complete.

That means, first, schedule 15- 30 minutes to download the mess in your brain to paper that is necessary to complete your task or project. Second, schedule out steps you’ve identified into palatable chunks of time in your calendar.  All you’ve done is created space to build the framework. No progress yet, right? Wrong! You're mentally halfway done! Isn’t it true that the toughest part of getting on the treadmill is the pondering before…” Am I going to do this?” And maybe the first 10 seconds. After that, 30 minutes is easy.

Stop picking up your priorities one at a time to see if they fit. Manage them like you would a puzzle!

Write it down, organize, schedule, and execute. Bam! Your puzzle is complete!