One important part of my professional life is constantly questing for ways to enhance my abilities and skills. I think an unused brain is a dull brain and business requires sharpness at all times. One area that I focus on for this is problem/puzzle solving. I do sudoku, but I’ve never had the desire to do crosswords. David Black got me thinking about the nature of both types of puzzles in a post he made on sudoku solutions.
Sudoku is more of an introspective puzzle, it’s cleaner, it’s lighter, and my feeling is that it fits in perfectly with Japanese culture. I solve sudoku internally. There is no context needed, I look at the puzzle, and everything that I need is right there. Crossword puzzles are focused on the external, they are word oriented. Each clue has a context around it that I need to have awareness of. This could be word meaning, cultural history, or even the ability to ask someone else for a quick clue. It seems that sudoku would be good for you to sharpen your problem-solving skills, however crosswords would seem to enhance your context-solving skills. This leads me further into my discovery of what goes into “good” dialogue within the context of effectively communicating with my clients/customers as to their wishes. I hope to be posting more on these theories in the weeks to come.
