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The Tyranny of the Streak
Jul. 21st, 2020 01:04 pmI've been doing the NYT crossword puzzle since high school, so that makes it about 40 years worth of puzzle doing. I've never been a fanatic, but I've enjoyed the challenge. I took a lengthy break when the Times put up a paywall and I hadn't realized that when I started actually paying for access, my subscription included the crossword.
I've been doing it daily for about a year and a half now, and I'm not particularly great at it. Mondays - Wednesdays (the easy days) I can do it in about 10-20 minutes and I don't need help, but Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays are devilishly difficult, especially when there are rebuses involved (rebuses are those fiendish clues that require you to put more than one letter into a box, and usually there are no hints that the clue calls for a rebus in the answer). Sunday puzzles aren't terribly difficult - on par with Wednesdays - they are just long.
Bhe thing is, when you do the puzzle digitally, it keeps track of your streak of correctly completed puzzles. And I'm currently at 262 days, my longest streak ever:
A hundred or so days will bring me to one year, which probably is nothing compared to other solvers. But honestly, it's beginning to feel like a burden.
The problem is, I am a completist. Once I get started, I really need to keep going. I'm the same way with bingos (fucking bingos) - it's a blackout or it's not worth doing.
I also need to cut myself a break.
Perhaps when I get to one year. Then maybe.
I've been doing it daily for about a year and a half now, and I'm not particularly great at it. Mondays - Wednesdays (the easy days) I can do it in about 10-20 minutes and I don't need help, but Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays are devilishly difficult, especially when there are rebuses involved (rebuses are those fiendish clues that require you to put more than one letter into a box, and usually there are no hints that the clue calls for a rebus in the answer). Sunday puzzles aren't terribly difficult - on par with Wednesdays - they are just long.
Bhe thing is, when you do the puzzle digitally, it keeps track of your streak of correctly completed puzzles. And I'm currently at 262 days, my longest streak ever:
A hundred or so days will bring me to one year, which probably is nothing compared to other solvers. But honestly, it's beginning to feel like a burden.
The problem is, I am a completist. Once I get started, I really need to keep going. I'm the same way with bingos (fucking bingos) - it's a blackout or it's not worth doing.
I also need to cut myself a break.
Perhaps when I get to one year. Then maybe.
