“Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth” — Jean de la Bruyere

Over the last six months, on most business trips I’ve noticed people on the plane playing Sudoku. I’m not sure what all the fuss is about since never having tried it. At first glance, it seems like crossword puzzles would be a better use of time if you were looking to improve a skill. Vocabulary seems more important than trying to organize numbers in rows and columns.

Then I learned that Sudoku is a game of logic and obviously, this comes in handy in the real world. Take planning for retirement as an example. Doug Short at The Motley Fool sees this connection. He writes, “Just as in Sudoku, you can solve your retirement-plan puzzles only by seeing the big picture. You can’t focus on only one of the nine Sudoku grids to find a solution.”

“You have to factor in the total. For example, if you try to fill in the uppermost left square in our puzzle (see article and puzzle here) strictly on the basis of its immediate grid, you have five possibilities: 1, 3, 5, 6, and 8. But if you look across the first row, you can eliminate 3 and 5. If you look down the first column, you can eliminate 8. We’ve now narrowed our choices to 1 and 6. If we repeat the process for the other blanks in the upper left grid, we’ll discover that 1 is not a possibility for any of the other blanks. We can then be certain that 1 is the correct number for the upper left corner.”

“Retirement planning works the same way. If you focus exclusively on today’s income and expenses, you risk filling in your immediate grid with numbers you’ll need later. It’s human nature to place a higher value on the present than on the future. But a successful retirement means smoothing out value. Winning at life is like winning at Sudoku — all squares count the same.”

Rick Aristotle Munarriz also at The Motley Fool draws the parallel with investing. He writes, “If you haven’t given it a shot, I suggest you sharpen that No. 2 pencil and give it a try. If you’re one of the many Sudoku addicts out there, does the logic process involved in solving these numeric puzzlers feel similar to the one you use when investing? It should. To me, many of the same skills involved in completing a Sudoku challenge are the same ones you hone as an investor.” Click here to see what he’s means.

He concludes with, “So what do you think? Isn’t Sudoku a lot like investing? As potential shareowners, aren’t we just filling in boxes, fleshing out potential scenarios, and smiling wide when we’re right?”

I’ll let you all know after my next plane ride.