I've recently I’ve been playing a lot of Sudoku 🧩
If you’re not familiar, it’s a puzzle game where you have to insert the numbers one to nine into a grid consisting of nine squares subdivided into a further nine smaller squares in such a way that every number appears once in each horizontal line, vertical line, and square.
It looks like this 👇
It’s a game that can immerse you, making you forget all your worries, yet also frustrate you to the point of wanting to pull your hair out!!
But, the more I’ve played this game, the more I’ve started to notice patterns.
And there’s one pattern in particular that’s really helped me as a designer recently.
See, as I started improving my sudoku skills, I moved onto harder puzzles. These tougher levels required me to change how I approached and played the game.
When I first started doing sudoku, I would only stop when I completed the puzzle, which was fine because the ones I began with were pretty simple and didn’t require much mental effort.
But when I tried this approach on harder puzzles, I’d hit a wall and get frustrated. I could feel my brain draining from the extended concentration as my mind ran through all the possible outcomes.
Trying to battle this didn’t work. I ended up even more frustrated, and it started to take the fun out of the game.
So, I decided to change my approach…
I set a rule for myself: as soon as I started to feel mentally drained and wasn’t making any progress, I would stop, do something else, and come back to it later.
And it worked like magic! I would work through the puzzles, and if I was stuck on a section for a long time with no progress, I would put the book down and return to it later.
There’s so much to be said about a fresh pair of eyes and a clear mind. After taking a break, I would come back and usually find the missing piece I was looking for, thinking, “how did I not see that in the first place?”
And only recently, after playing the game for the last month or, did I realise that this is the exact same approach I needed to take with my design work.
I’m sure many of you have been there: spending the whole day at your desk, trying to brainstorm ideas for your current design project, only to end up with a page filled with half-baked ideas by 5pm, and deciding to call it a day.
This used to be me. I thought I could push through mental and creative blocks by outworking the problem. But not every problem can be solved with more hours and motivation, especially in creative fields like branding, packaging, or web design.
Now, if I find myself struggling during the ideation stage of a brand, the layout of a website, or even while writing these emails, I create space between me and the task. This gives my mind time to wander, think, and maybe even find some inspiration.
I like to do this by getting out of the office for a short 15-20 minute walk, or sometimes, I switch to a low mental capacity task, put my desk in standing mode so I can move more, and put on some music.
So, here’s the story about how Sudoku helped me become a better designer!
There are two things you can take from this email:
When you find yourself unable to solve a problem, create space and give yourself time to think.
Be open to picking up new hobbies. You never know the positive influence they could have on your life. I initially frowned at the thought of doing Sudoku, thinking it was something only old people do. But it’s fun, helps me relax, keeps me away from my phone during non-work hours and even made me a better designer. I hope you found this somewhat useful! Chat next week,
Abi 😊
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