I was out of ideas when I did this video, so I spent some time looking around my place for something I could film. As it turned out, I hadn’t done a puzzle in a REALLY long time, and happened to have a 500 piece one I like in my closet. I decided to give it a whirl.

It only took me about 3 hours to complete the whole thing, which means I got approximately 1 piece in place every 20 seconds or so. It felt pretty quick (although my butt would disagree as it was quite sore from sitting on hardwood for that long) Videos that I’ve done since then where I had to sit on the ground have included my bean bag chair for comfort.

When putting a puzzle together (and I’ve done more than a few in my time), I almost always start with the outside pieces first. I find them fairly easy to locate in the box, and it gives me a pretty good idea where everything is going to go. The best part of this step is getting a hold of the corner pieces. There are so few of them, it feels like finding a treasure each time.

Once I’ve got the outside complete, or nearly complete, I sort by colour. Typically different areas have common colours. And while I’m doing that, I separate any easily distinguishable pieces, like faces, hands or words. This is only possible on smaller puzzles. Once you pass the 1000 piece mark, you just have to take some colours at a time, and work with what you’ve got instead of pulling them all out of the box.

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