A thousand pieces sounds like a lot. It's not though.
It is not. It is about six to ten hours for most people, spread over a week, and the first two of those hours do most of the work. But choose badly on your first box and you will decide puzzling is not for you, which would be a shame.
So, briefly, how to choose well.
Start at 1000, not 500. This surprises people. A 500 piece puzzle has larger pieces and a smaller image, which sounds easier, and it is, but it is over quickly and it does not give you the good part. The good part is the settling in. Aim for 1000. It is the standard adult size for a reason.
Choose an image with variety. The single most important factor in whether a puzzle is enjoyable is how much visual information is in it. A picture with lots of different colours, textures and objects gives you constant footholds. A picture that is 40% cloudless sky gives you a wall.
Cottages, canal boats, markets, bookshelves, castles, gardens, streetscapes. All good first puzzles. Modern minimalist art, gradients, and anything described as a challenge for experienced puzzlers can wait.
Choose an image you actually like looking at. You are going to be staring at it for hours. Pick a place you have been, or want to go. Pick your own interest, whatever it is. Enthusiasm for the picture does a surprising amount of the work.
Set up somewhere it can stay. The single biggest reason people abandon puzzles is having to pack them up. A spare table, a card table in the corner, a puzzle board or roll-up mat you can slide under the bed. If your puzzle has to come off the dining table before every meal, it will not get finished.
Light it properly. A lamp beside you, not a light behind you. Shadow is the enemy. Half of puzzling is reading the shape of an edge, and you cannot read what you cannot see.
Now the method, in the order that works.
Sort your edges out first, into their own pile, as you unpack. Build the border. It gives you a frame and an early win.
Then sort the rest by colour and pattern into shallow trays, box lids or baking dishes. Do not skip this. Sorting feels like a delay and it is actually most of the solving. By the time you have sorted, you know the puzzle.
Work the distinctive regions next. A red roof, a lettered sign, a boat, a face. These come together fast and give you anchors to build outward from.
Leave the sky and the water until last, and sort those by shape rather than colour. Two nubs in, two out. One in, three out. This is the technique that turns the worst part of a puzzle into a solvable one.
And when it gets slow, walk away. Ten minutes doing something else and the piece you could not find will be obvious. Everyone who puzzles knows this and nobody can explain it.
One last thing. Nobody is timing you. There is no correct pace. The whole point is that this is an hour that asks nothing of you.
Have a look at our 1000 piece puzzles.