Playing puzzles is a mentally challenging activity; if you want to finish the whole puzzle as fast as possible, you really have to put your attention to it. Any forms of distractions around you, whether noise or visual distraction that will grab your attention will always result to slow progress.
Puzzles have been around for centuries, and since then it has been always used to exercise the mind, for it has been proven to really help one's mind to develop, especially to children, for them to react and act to the things around them accordingly. So if you want a good mind exercise, or you want to challenge your mind on any forms of mental activity, solving jigsaw puzzles will be a great challenge for you.
You can start with a small scale, an image or picture of animals, scenes or landscapes consisting of 50 to 300 pieces. Completing this will be a great jumpstart for your exercise. Then from this, indulge yourself into more challenging boards, like completing a medium sized puzzle that ranges from 300 to 1000 pieces.
Your environment plays a big role in helping you finish the activity, though some really large boards will take days if not weeks to complete, a good work place will help you do the job faster and more time efficient.
Choose your work area properly, a table, flat desk, waist high secluded area or a carpeted floor can be great. Just make sure there is enough space to lay the pieces individually face-up so you can recognize each of them easily. And lastly about the workplace, make sure you are comfortable and you feel like working in that area. Put any distractions away or turn them off like television or radio. If you want to harness your skills in this activity it is very important that you turn down any forms of distractions while solving.
Though solving big jigsaw puzzles can be time consuming, it is really a wonderful feeling to see yourself place that last puzzle piece, complete the whole set and see the whole completed picture.
