The Little Book of Jigsaw Wisdom
Many years ago, I found myself in my parents’ home, doing a jigsaw puzzle.
It was one of the toughest periods in my life. My emotional system was all twisted; life was about day by day.
On some level I knew that day by day was how I would move through it. But on some other very real levels, I didn’t see how it would happen.
One of the things I remember sparking something in me was a thought I had: a realisation, as my parents and I moved through a 1,000-piece puzzle, that the jigsaw was a metaphor for my situation.
I concieved an idea: The Little Book of Jigsaw Wisdom.
Containing all the ways in which working on a jigsaw puzzle is the perfect metaphor for working through the biggest, messiest, most overwhelming problems in our lives.
That little book is also a reminder to me that it comes from another period in my life.
It is a reminder of pre-12-Minute Method Robbie, who had ideas and didn’t act on them.
It is a lost relic of my art (until, in some ways, now).
This January wasn’t as tough a time as that; but it has been a tough time.
Remembering the family tradition which lasted four or five years, of doing a 1,000 piece puzzle together at Christmas, I bought one for my family last year.
Together, we did almost nothing on it.
But by myself, after they had left, I gradually worked my way through it.
And, as I went, reconstructing a picture of the main characters from the TV show Friends, I remembered the jigsaw wisdom.
Perhaps it was only really visible when the combination of a puzzle and a tough time was present.
Here, then - in case the little book never exists - is a reminder for you of the power of a puzzle to capture, metaphorically, so much of the challenge of being human.
1. When you look at the pile of pieces, it simply looks an impossible task.
But those who complete the puzzle know it is not. They know, simply, that you just have to start.
2. Finding the edges of the puzzle is pretty much widely agreed as the best way to start.
And we might infer from that, that defining the edges of your problem - even if you have no idea of what will happen in the middle, is the best way to start when you are totally overwhelmed.
Really, forget all the rest of the details. Just gather the edge pieces as much as you can. Find the corners. Then, once you have those gathered together, begin to create the outline of the solution. Once you have it, you have something.
And once you have something, everything becomes easier.
3. Sorting is a very useful thing to do.
Taking the pieces and performing a first sort to know the kinds of areas of the middle of the puzzle is another broadly obvious and incredibly useful tactic.
As I went on, I noticed the flaws in that first sort as my pattern recognition grew. That’s worth saying: you won’t get the first sort exactly right. But it tells you a lot.
Ok, there’s a load of skin to be sorted. Joey’s jumper is this colour. What the heck is all this yellow stuff? Oh, it’s the wall.
4. In the end, you have to start fitting some pieces together.
Once you know the vague areas, choose one and see what you can make of it.
In my view, choose the easiest. If you can create Phoebe’s face or Ross’s hair because the pieces are disctinctive, do that. If there’s a vase of flowers that makes the pieces of it obvious, or something about Rachel’s jeans, then do that.
Notice the progress. Get the rush of creating something, of seeing things fit together.
We don’t want to give up, so start with what’s easy.
5. Your skill and pattern recognition will increase.
Even over the course of one puzzle, my ability to make relevant distinctions and spot pieces that fit improved noticeably.
What first just looks like ‘blue’ quite swiftly became ‘oh, that’s obviously Joey’s jumper and not that blue bit of wall’, even though the me who started didn’t even know there was a blue bit of wall and couldn’t make the distinctions.
Only by getting familiar with the detail of the problem did those distinctions become obvious. But by the end, they were.
That of course, is part of the process. Only by doing the thing do we learn how to do the thing.
6. Sometimes, brute force is required.
It’s not fun and it’s not glorious but, towards the end, there are parts of the puzzle that just need to be solved by sorting the different types of piece by shape, comparing all the different bits, and trying all the possible ones until it feels right.
It’s not glorious, but if you want the finished puzzle, you’ll need to sit down and do it.
There you go.
There’s some jigsaw wisdom.
Now take it out into your life and get to work.
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PS If you happen to be a coach, you might be interested in a new ebook I’ve published, An Introduction to the Coaching Business Flywheel. It contains my most original thinking about building a coaching business - something I believe is a genuine contribution to the field. You can find get the ebook for free at https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/the-coaching-business-flywheel
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
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