Effective Time is your raw solve time plus 10 seconds for every mistake. That second part is easy to forget mid-race, and it's usually the bigger lever. Two mistakes cost you 20 seconds flat — more than most people save by rushing through an entire board.
Scan before you fill anything
The urge is to place a digit the moment you see one. Better: spend the first few seconds reading the whole board — which boxes are nearly full, where a digit is obviously missing from just one row. A cell you fill 3 seconds later because you scanned first beats one you filled instantly and got wrong.
Chase singles in bulk, not one at a time
Naked and hidden singles rarely show up alone. Placing one almost always creates another right next to it — a box that had two open cells now has one. Sweep for the next single before moving to a harder technique instead of solving-then-scanning in separate passes.
Don't let accuracy slide as difficulty climbs
Harder tiers naturally slow you down, and that's fine — what isn't fine is trading accuracy for speed to compensate. A pointing pair or naked pair you talk yourself into instead of actually verifying is exactly where mistakes cluster on Hard and Expert boards.
Go deep on one technique before adding the next
Half-knowing five techniques is slower than fully knowing two. If naked pairs still take you a beat to spot, that's worth fixing before reaching for X-Wing — the harder technique won't save time if the foundational one is still shaky.
Treat mistake two as a stop sign
At two mistakes you're one away from a forfeit that erases the whole attempt. This is the moment to actually slow down, not grit through faster — a forfeited race costs you far more than the seconds you'd save finishing quickly.
Effective Time rewards the boring stuff: reading the board properly, confirming before you commit, not getting greedy after a mistake. That's a less exciting story than "solve faster," but it's the one that actually moves the number.