Puzzling Life Lessons

In my full-time job, I’m responsible for developing thought leadership articles for subject matter experts at the agency. Recently, I pondered how to create a business advice article authored by one of our executives, who is also a beekeeper. I envisioned a column in which she compares negotiating, supervising, ideating, etc., in her work to how bees manage themselves in a hive.

I started wondering if there was something equivalent in my life that teaches me about success in my work, and I realized puzzling was a perfect metaphor. 

As I was finishing up a puzzle and thinking, which I often do, as puzzling as sort of my humming, or chewing gum for the mind. Instead of staring into space while the wheels turned in my brain, I sit at my puzzle table and ponder the pieces.

That’s when it dawned on me, puzzling teaches many lessons that can be applied to not just work but any aspect of life. 

Starting with the easy ones: 

A wrong fit.

No matter how hard you try, if a piece isn’t right, you can’t push it into place. You can manipulate it and bend it, and it might be close, but then it’s going to cause the other pieces around it not to fit, so, you have to look for the right piece and not force the wrong piece. This can apply to personnel or teammates. Sometimes a person isn’t a good fit for a certain job or at the company in general. It’s better to MoveOn than to try to make that person contort into something they are not. It will affect everyone around them and ultimately destroy the harmony of your creation. 

Organization 

Sometimes when you dump all the puzzle pieces out on a table, it looks like an impossible task. So many tiny pieces, so many different colors, where do you even start? This can be the same with a large assignment. First things first. Take the time to get organized. Sort, separate, and come up with a strategy. In the long run, taking the time at the beginning of the task to formulate a plan and tackle it step-by-step will serve you far better than just diving in and trying to assemble the puzzle or launch into the task without guides in place. 

Persistence

With a difficult puzzle, such as one with a lot of the same color pieces, it can seem like an impossible task to find the right pieces to build the finished product. Sometimes you have to try many wrong pieces, sometimes there is frustration, and sometimes you get lucky, and pieces fit right away. The longer you do it, the better you get at spotting the right pieces and making fewer mistakes. Practice makes perfect, and patience leads to completion and success. 

Procrastination

Almost always, some sections of a puzzle are harder than others. There might be large areas a very similar colors that you know are going to take a long time to match. The same occurs with any work project. There will be easy aspects that you will want to tackle first, but no matter what, in the end, the hard parts will still be waiting for you. In this case, it’s a matter of preference, as some people like to do the hard parts first and then glide through the rest of the assignment with the easy parts, but the lesson here is that there is no escaping the hard parts. Putting off the hard parts can sometimes sour your enthusiasm for the project because you are always dreading them. Unless, of course, you’re someone who likes the challenge and you are saving the best for last! No matter what, just be prepared that both the easy and the hard parts need to come together to create your masterpiece. 

Chunking 

A popular term in workflows these days is “Chunking.” This is when you break up tasks into smaller parts so that the overall project is not overwhelming. Not to be confused with procrastination, Chunking is simply dividing a task into manageable parts, and then tackling them in order. For instance, with a puzzle, you can sit down and do the entire thing in six hours, but you will most likely run out of steam. Your excitement for the hobby, may Wayne, your eyes make it blurry, your back may start to hurt, you may neglect other things that need to be done around the house. But if you chunk the task, so that you are doing two hours of the puzzle each night, you actually become more efficient. You have more energy and are more lively, your brain is not as fatigued, and the task becomes more pleasant to execute. And after all, isn’t it better that we enjoy our work?

A puzzle can be challenging, but you find fulfillment as you gaze over the finished product and satisfyingly rub your hands over the connected pieces. The same as with any work task. When a job is well done, you feel well when it’s done.