Maybe I’m addicted to Bejeweled Blitz. Maybe they should have never made a (free!) iPhone app for it. I distinctly remember laughing maniacally as I downloaded the app. I’ve had it for several months now, and had been playing it since it debuted on Facebook a while ago. Many productive hours have gone into mastering it at this point. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned about life while playing this ridiculously addictive game.

Lesson #1: Save your coins (money) for the big stuff with the big payouts. This was the first lesson I became aware of shortly after I started playing. In Bejeweled Blitz, you collect coins during each game and on daily spins. You need those coins to buy rare gems which you then use during games to get higher scores. Sometimes I get only 100 coins a game, sometimes I get 1200. Because of the magic of math, every little bit adds up. So, I be collecting.

Same goes for life. Saving is just smart money sense. Even if it’s just $10 on any incoming fund source, it will add up so you can make those big, quality purchases with big, long-term payouts. This lesson works really well with the last two in this list, so I’ll tie them in later.

Lesson #2: Trust your decisions in order to move quickly. I just figured out this lesson. In Bejeweled Blitz, if you clear a certain number of gems in rapid succession you enter Blazing Speed mode where gems explode when they’re cleared for Maximum Pointage muahahahahahahaha!

Ahem. So I discovered in Blazing Speed mode, my eyes move around the board while the gems are clearing, trusting that the matches I made will clear and I can go off in search of others. But why should I wait for Blazing Speed mode to play this way? Once I started moving my eyes across the entire board instead of watching gems clear, I increased my score by 200,000, easy. It was actually a bit ridiculous.

It’s a game of faith. Trust that you’re making the right moves, and stay two, three, four moves ahead in life. Constantly dwelling on decisions won’t make them more right or more wrong. Be swift and sure in your decisions and keep, it, moving.

Lesson #3: Practice makes better. How do you know you’re making the right decision? When you’ve made a series of them several times before. It may not be the same decision every time, but you’ve gained the skills you need to discern what is more right and what is more wrong. This comes from practice. From practice, I’ve memorized the shape of matching gems with the highest payouts. I know which color of gems I’m more likely to notice (red) and those I’m least likely to notice (white). I know how to compensate for each and every in between.

Whatever you give attention to you’ll become skilled at. You keep practicing, you’ll get more coins which you can save up.

Lesson #4: Be consistent. I’ll go days without playing Bejeweled Blitz. In fact, once I downloaded Temple Run (different game, different lessons, God help us), I stopped playing Bejeweled Blitz for a few months. When I started up again, I was rusty as [insert clever metaphor here]. But I started playing daily and eventually got back into the swing of things. Again, the magic of math makes the sum of the daily actions greater that the number of actions in the end. The little things add up. This is why saving works, why making swift decisions works and why practice makes you better. It’s probably the most important thing I’ve learned from Bejeweled Blitz.

So those are the lessons I’ve learned as a result of being an addict of this game. Honestly, I wrote them out mostly for myself as I prepare to dominate 2013 (yes, I am laughing maniacally as I type this out). These lessons are crucial to my growth, too. I hope you learn how to play this game of life better next year. Blitz on!