If you are like me and many other puzzle enthusiasts, you may have dozens or even hundreds of puzzles. It's not easy to keep track of your puzzle collection unless you want to create a website like mine (believe me, it wasn't much joy to add all my plus 300 puzzles here).
And if you are a speed puzzler, you most likely want to track your times. The traditional pen and paper strategy may work but only for marking the times down. What if you want to compare your times or see how your times are developing?
Technology might be required so you can actually focus on puzzling instead of doing some mathematical analysis of your written times and notes. And even if you are just tracking your puzzle collection and not that interested in your times, digital solutions can help!
PuzzleTracker - Keep up with your puzzle collection
PuzzleTracker is an app where you can add all your puzzles and times. You can also use it as a timer. Or you can add your puzzle without any time so this app is very suitable for all puzzlers. You can also add puzzles to the waiting list (we all know you have that to-do pile of puzzles waiting...) or to the wish list.
When adding a new puzzle, you have plenty of information you can add; name, brand, piece count, tags (of your own), price, and artist. You can rate all puzzles with stars regarding the difficulty, quality, and overall satisfaction.
Please note that you indeed must add this information yourself - there are no puzzles listed in advance anywhere. There is an option though to take an image of the bar code in the puzzle to fill in the information but this feature is available only in Premium.
The basic version of the app is free for everyone. The Premium version costs 2,99 € a month. There is also an option to pay yearly 34,99 € or at once 129,99 € (I assume this gives you forever access).
However, using this app is as lonely as doing puzzles alone. You cannot connect with other app users so it's purely for yourself. It's possible to click any puzzles and 'share' that will give you a shareable image of that puzzle with time, piece count, brand, and rating information.
You can track easily how many puzzles you have done in a month or year. But if you really want to track your development as a speed puzzler, this is not the most suitable for you. I would recommend this more for tracking your puzzle collection.
My Speed Puzzling - Every Speed Puzzler's Dream!
Myspeedpuzzling.com is a website that has more community side to it. It is THE BEST SITE ever for speed puzzlers. I could just right away say that go and check it out yourself. I'm 100% sure you will fall in love with it. It has everything you need and such a smooth user experience.
The website is "Created with love for puzzles and code by Simona Mikešová and Jan Mikeš". It's a community platform for especially speed puzzlers but I can honestly recommend it to all puzzlers. You can find my profile and speed puzzling times from there - not yet all updated but I keep working on it as we speak!
So what can you do there? You can add all your speed puzzling times. Many of the puzzles are already listed so all you need to do is to click them and add your time. And all puzzles have all the times from all other speed puzzlers. And yes, I keep repeating the word ALL but it is really the keyword here.
To use this website, you must create your profile first. A first name is enough if you want to keep your whole name private. Location and nationality are important information, and we can already see so many puzzlers joining from all around the world. If you wish you can add more information about yourself and your social media links.
In addition to leaderboards (and much more), you can take a look at anyone's profile and see their speed puzzling times. You can compare with a specific puzzler and it will show you the time comparisons on all puzzles that both of you have done. You can add any other puzzler as your favorite.
I have added my teammates as favorites because it makes it easier to add pair and team speed puzzling times. Yes, this is possible too! All solo, duo, and team have their own leaderboards. New features are coming all the time, and feedback is really considered.
I believe that this website will have a huge impact on developing speed puzzling into a seriously taken sport. It has connections to speed puzzling competitions like the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship and Nationals around the world. So you can see if a puzzle was used in a competition.
I could continue my list forever of what can you do on this website, and what's so awesome about it but I think you should just go and experience it on your own. I'm in contact with Simona and Jan so if you feel more comfortable chatting with me about some feedback, I'm happy to forward it anonymously to them. However, I do recommend sending any feedback directly to them, there's an easy form for this purpose on the website.
If you wish to support them even more, you can do it on their membership page.
Why track your times as a speed puzzler?
We all know it's not the easiest task to track our development. Why? Because all puzzles are different so the times are not comparable. Also doing a puzzle for a second time is not comparable with the first time. Tricky!
What I would recommend is to pay more attention to your average time (per piece count) of all puzzles and your PPM. PPM stands for pieces per minute. Is your average time getting lower and your PPM higher? Awesome. Follow this trend but not too often.
Check your development monthly or once in a quarter. If you check your average time and changes in that weekly, you are most likely not gonna see anything - or it might be even higher because of chance variation. Some of us don't even do that many puzzles in a week that it would give us any good insights. And that much of a development doesn't happen in a week.
Tracking your development will keep you motivated. Also if you try out new practicing methods, it's important to see how are they working for you. The development is usually slow so it's hard to see it yourself without proper tracking. It's like getting a puppy but you don't see its growth because you see your puppy every day. Your friend who sees your puppy once a month does see it. And anyway, it's always easier to see development looking from outside looking in.
Why compare your times with other speed puzzlers?
Competition is all about comparing. Who is faster? It hasn't been too many years that we have been able to see how fast are other speed puzzlers. But more times are becoming visible online and on social media.
Even though there are for sure still some super fast speed puzzlers we don't know of (maybe they don't know it either, yet), the resources we have now for comparing, should give you a good idea of where you stand.
If you want to set up goals like getting to the final in WJPC 2024, you have to know what kind of times you are going to be against. This will give you the right insights to also create your practice plan - realistically.
Always remember, speed puzzling is a skill that everyone can learn. Not a talent that you either have or don't have. And to be exact, speed puzzling is a combination of different skills.
If you are interested in more speed puzzling tips, I have all the best tips collected on a playlist called The Ultimate Guide to Speed Puzzling on my YouTube channel.
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