I play Clues by Sam nearly every single day. I wrote about it before, but solving a little crime puzzle adds a micro-thrill to my day. A little blast of logic, misdirection, and wordplay. It’s a frequent topic of conversation in the ShopTalkShow Discord where people share their solves like Wordle scores.

It might have been Josh who first pointed it out, but as a group we’ve realized that Clues by Sam is an uncanny proxy for measuring your emotional well-being that day. If you’re a regular puzzler, I think it’s safe to say you should be able to solve a non-weekend edition of Clues by Sam without any mistakes (green days). But there are off-days (yellow days) where I make obvious errors tracking the four or five clues you need to solve the puzzle. And there are worse days (orange days) where even with hints, I have no idea what I’m doing and begin to doubt my understanding of English.

Borrowing the metaphor of Spoon Theory from the disabled community, Clues by Sam helps me take inventory of what’s left in my kitchen drawers. My performance on Clues by Sam often alerts me to events happening in my subconscious. It’s become a barometer for my cognitive bandwidth; like Person, Man, Woman, Camera, TV but with Xena, Kyle, Paula, Vince, and Chloe. Faceplanting on an easy puzzle is a clue for me that I have some unarticulated anxieties occupying my mind.

It’s not rocket science that cognitive tasks are more difficult when you’re distracted, but the reliability to which this daily puzzler causes me to dig into my personal well-being is shocking. I’m beginning to see obvious mistakes –like the common “crimocent” mix-up– less as a failure and more as an opportunity to pause and assess what else might be going on in my life.