I have the coffee maker set so that there is coffee ready when my alarm goes off at 6am. I go get a cup of coffee, come back to bed, grab my phone, open the NYT puzzle app, and start my day with puzzles to wake my brain up.
First I do an easy Sudoku. Usually takes me about 3 minutes.
Then I start working my way up. Next is Strands, then Connections.
I skip Wordle and go to Spelling Bee. I play until I run out of words. That can be anywhere from Great to Genius, but I usually stop somewhere in Amazing.
Next come the crosswords – first the mini, then the midi. At this point I stop and go get a second cup of coffee, then come back and do the regular NYT crossword.
Finally I play Wordle. When I’m done I text my results to my wife, then come here and post my results in the Wordle thread.
If there was anything I wasn’t able to finish (most likely Connections) I will circle back around, then take another look at Spelling Bee and see if I can get Genius before it’s time to finally drag my butt out of bed and get on with my day.
I was just thinking about starting a thread on this very topic.
I start with Wordle, then Connections. Then Spelling Bee until I get stuck. Then the Mini, followed by Letter Boxed. Then Spelling Bee for a while. Then Strands, if I feel like it. Then back to the Bee until I reach Genius (or maybe QB), or I give up.
Then I go to my favorite puzzle on the web, Squardle.
Wordle then Connections are first thing over breakfast when I wake up. My wife does MTW crossword, so on the train to work, I’ll finish those if they aren’t, or correct them. Thursday is all mine, on the train to work.
Friday and Saturday crosswords I do with my daughter on a video call, a nice weekly routine, usually done on Saturday. Sunday crossword is all mine again, usually while eating a bagel on Sunday morning.
ETA: Ooh, forgot to add Spelling Bee. Usually done here and there throughout the day.
I start with Wordle, sometimes around 3AM if I’ve woken and know I won’t soon fall back asleep. For Wordle, my current challenge is to try to get more 3s than 5s - as of this morning, the difference is 7 games, but it has been as high as 19.
Then I do the mini-crossword, hoping for a score in the 30 second range (17 is the low).
Then I do the Spelling Bee, until I reach Genius, no hints. Then I do Connections, and save the main Crossword until I get to work, but I always do Sunday on paper.
Well, this isn’t all NYT, but I always start the day with SquareWord, then I go to Spelling Bee, and once I get Genius on that I go to framed.wtf and then Strands. Then I open Squaredle and try to finish without hitting any bonus words, which is difficult because the editor has even stranger choices than Sam Ezersky (so, I usually quit that one early).
My wife does Wordle, Connections, and the hard Sudoku.
On Sunday I’ll then do the Friday and Saturday crossword puzzles.
Spelling Bee–>Mini Crossword–>Connections–>Midi Crossword–>Wordle. I do the NYT daily puzzle (in ink!) from the local newspaper, along with the paper’s daily crossword.
I do Wordle like 3-4 times a week. My strategy is to complete it as quickly as possible, just pick whatever word comes to mind. I fail more often than I like, and get very low scores sometimes.
When we hit Thursday, I often work with Mrs. Cheesesteak on the crossword. As a collaborative effort it’s fun, we usually can complete it without cheating. We have a streak of over 1,100 days and counting.
On days when I’m working from home, or weekends, we do connections, pips, and strands together.
We have gotten shockingly good at Connections. Our completion rate is nearly 100%, and we typically figure out all 4 categories before submitting answers, with the goal being to get the reverse rainbow. We consider it a failure if we submit a single incorrect category, and consider it the creator’s failure if their color assignments don’t match ours (usually accompanied by “That’s some bullsh*t, no way that one should’ve been blue”)
Mrs. Cheesesteak does the sudokus every day without fail, and keeps the crossword streak going, taking the bullet on Mon - Wed when the puzzle is boring.
I awaken in the night. I play the Spelling Bee to at least Amazing. In the morning, I finish it. I then congratulate myself for breaking free of the clutches of Wordle and Connections. That is all.
Exactly what Squaredle is. (Apologize for misspelling it in my earlier post.) Sometimes fairly easy, oftentimes ridiculously hard. As the good Professor noted upthread, it’s pretty easy on Monday, but gets progressively harder through Sunday.
Crossword: I only do Thursday through Sunday. Usually in the morning – start on my phone soon after waking up, finish on my laptop at the breakfast table. Sometimes start (and occasionally finish) at night, if I’m up late enough for when they come online. Once in a while, I prefer to print it out and do it on paper.
Spelling Bee: Almost every day: my spouse gets it started, and then I get us from “Great” to “Genius” (typically). Sometimes she finishes* on her own. Occasionally we’ll collaborate, on the couch. In all cases, it’s always on her phone.
*For us, that means Genius. You folks who get EVERY word (is that a Queen Bee?) astound me.
Note that some of the puzzles (Wordle, Connections, Strands and maybe Pips) become available after midnight in your local time zone. So if you want to do tomorrow’s Wordle, Connections or Strands today, just change the time zone on your phone or computer so that it’s past midnight. The crossword puzzle is only available after 10pm Eastern time (6pm on Saturdays and Sundays) and the Spelling Bee only after 3am Eastern time, so you can’t jump ahead on either of those.
Most weekday mornings I do Connections. I only do Wordle once in a blue moon, but this morning was one of those lucky days where I did do it. I solved it in only three tries!
I’m a midnight puzzler. First I do the daily challenge of Finished (not a NYT game), then I do Wordle. When that’s done, I go to Spelling Bee. I try to get to Genius without using hints, but sometimes I have to peek.
After that I do Connections, always trying for the reverse rainbow, though I don’t always get it. Then it’s back to Spelling Bee to try for Queen Bee, making full use of the hints. Usually I have to finish it the following day — it’s surprising how many words seem obvious in the morning when they were impossible the night before.
It’s true that sometimes setting the Spelling Bee puzzle aside is helpful, though it doesn’t need to be all night. Sometimes, I just go for a shower and a word will come to me while I’m in there.