Pandemic Puzzling - Lessons

As someone who is used to being out and about during the evenings, I knew I needed to embrace some new routines to stay sane while not being able to go out as much. I have always enjoyed puzzling (I credit my grandma who loved to puzzle). Things started off normally but then started to really take off. One of my close girlfriends and I started really getting into this hobby. So much so that I developed an unofficial goal that I only shared with a few friends around end of December. Could I achieve 52 – 1000-piece puzzles in 52 weeks of being stuck at home. This required an average of one a week but I did miss some weeks, so I had to catch up and stay on pace. Some of the harder puzzles took longer than a week. It also kept me in touch with friends, since I would lend out the ones I had completed. Some friends started dropping off puzzles because they had seen on Instagram how I was getting addicted.

 As I spent so much time doing it, I started to daydream about how puzzling can teach you lessons for business. So here goes my lessons I have thought about.

1.       Start with the outside – The business equivalent is frame what you are trying to accomplish. I find myself slipping into bad habits of starting things without asking enough questions to frame the need – when is it needed by? In what format? What are the constraints? If you are someone who likes to jump into new projects like me, it takes discipline to ask those type of questions.

2.      Sometimes you have to give up – I call this one the red poppies lesson. I had been gifted a beautiful puzzle of a field of red poppies. I knew it would be hard, so I waited to do it between Christmas and New Years when I had lots of time to take it on. After three weeks including several nights of nightmares about the red poppies, I had to give up. I had many friends encouraging me not to give up on it but to keep trying. With approximately 50 pieces left, I finally gave up. In the business context, have you ever been working towards something that just isn’t working? How long do you give it before you realize it’s time to pivot to something else? Are we too afraid to give up? I tried to view giving up as empowering but I never truly was able to feel that way.

3.      Grouping colours together - allows you to make connections between the pieces more quickly. I view this as looking for things that have been accomplished that are similar and taking lessons learned.

4.      Get up and change your perspective -are you stuck and always approaching things the same way with the same methodology? Try doing it completely differently and see if you get a different result. In puzzling this can be looking at the puzzle upside down or from the side. Sometimes sitting vs standing let’s you see things better.

5.      Competition is motivating- What kept me rolling on my goal to 52 was knowing my friend was ahead of the pace. Who at your work encourages you to push yourself?  It doesn’t have to be your boss- maybe a peer. Can you set a joint goal and keep checking in with one another?

6.      Taking time to do an activity without a screen frees up your brain to think about the challenges of the day. – It was amazing to me how while I find puzzling quite meditative (I haven’t managed actual meditation so this is as close to it as I get), it would allow my brain time to subconsciously think about whatever challenges I was facing. Or if I had big decisions to make, it would free me up to think about them.

7.      Share your accomplishments and your challenges – I enjoyed the positive feedback of posting each completed one on Instagram. The two I had to give up on I also posted. I debated not posting/sharing them but then I realized that wouldn’t be authentic. As a leader do you talk about what you tried but weren’t able to accomplish?