103 Wordle games logged: why are Tuesdays so slow?

Tuesdays are cursed. My Wednesday slump says hi.

The Tuesday gap could juts be your word list rotation. Did you change anything on Tuesdays?

I track NYT crossword times. Tuesdays are slower for me too, but I think it's because the puzzle is easier and I rush. Maybe same with Wordle.

Could be noise. 103 games is not that many for a day-of-week split.

Noise is possible, but I did something similar with my guitar practice: 140 days, logged minutes and mistakes per song. The pattern I swore was real vanished when I grouped by week instead of by day. Day-of-week stuff is sneaky because you carry Monday into Tuesday, and if you play before coffee on Tuesdays that's a different condition than Sunday afternoon. Did you log time of day too? That might explain more than the weekday. Also, your Sunday number is fast, which could just mean you have more patience on weekends. If I were you I'd plot rolling 7-day averages and see if Tuesday still pops out.

Time of day is a good call. My Wordle times got way worse after I stopped playing before work.

The rolling average idea is solid, but I'll take the opposite bet on why: Tuesdays are slower because the words are more common and people use their second guess to confirm instead of explore. I have a tiny 60-game log and my Tuesday average is 4.8 vs 4.1 overall, so not huge. But my worst days are always words with repeated letters. Maybe split your data by repeat-letter words before blaming Tuesday.

87 games here and my slowest day isn’t Tuesday, it’s Monday at 4:41

I did the same spreadsheet thing for about 70 games and the day-of-week pattern vanished once I added two columns: hours slept and whether I’d had coffee yet. My “slow” days were all low-sleep or pre-coffee solves—my Tuesday average was 5:14 until I realized I was doing it at 6:10am before a 7am meeting, then I moved Wordle to after breakfast and it dropped to 3:47. CRANE isn’t the variable there; your brain is. Out of curiosity, is your Tuesday Wordle happening at a different time than Sunday, or are you always same couch/same coffee? If it’s the same routine, then yeah, 103 games might just be noise, but if Tuesday is your early-meeting day, that 49-second gap is probably sleep debt, not the word list.

My 80-game tab says Tuesday is my fastest, so I'm blaming your coffee, not the word list.

Tuesday is leg day, my brain is toast after squats, Wordle doesn't stand a chance.

103 games = ~15 Tuesdays. With typical Wordle solve SD around 60–90s, your Tuesday mean has SE ~15–23s. A 49s gap vs overall is maybe 2–3 SE, so not automatically noise, but fragile. Before blaming the word list, pull Tuesday-specific n and SD, plus time-of-day. I log solve time and sleep; my slow days track short sleep more than puzzle. NYT solutions are curated, not random, but I’ve never seen a credible Tuesday-difficulty effect. What’s your Tuesday SD and median? Mean alone can hide one CRANE-hostile outlier.

Remember that old day-of-week curse thread? Mine flipped to Thursdays eventually. Spreadsheets gaslight us.

My tiny log says Tuesdays are slow too — maybe it's the word list, not your coffee. What's your usual Tuesday time?

I spreadsheet mine too; my Tuesday lag was just pre-coffee brain. Word list is fine.

Cafe owner here: Tuesday is my prep-and-pastry brain day, so Wordle gets the leftover neurons 😅

Tuesday is my airport day, so my brain is still in the security bin.

103 games is such a fun sample size to spiral over. My old 60-game tab said Wednesdays were cursed, then it just... evaporated.

Tuesdays are cursed for me too—my brain is still booting up lol.

Cafe owner here: Tuesdays are my inventory/order day, brain's fried by 7am—so it's definitely you, not Wordle.

Same here—Tuesdays are my slowest! Maybe it's the Monday catch-up. Do you fel rushed that morning?

My Tuesday gap vanished after I dropped two coffee-refill disasters—outliers love to bully a small average.

With only ~15 Tuesdays, I’d check median, not mean—one 12-minute Tuesday can skew the average. Also split your 103 into first 50 and last 53: if the Tuesday gap only shows in one half, it’s probably noise. In my n=1 log, a CRANE opening with zero hits adds ~90 seconds regardless of weekday. What’s your Tuesday median vs Sunday median, and does the gap survive dropping your worst Tuesday?

I keep rolling medians for Wordle like I do for daily weigh-ins. With ~15 Tuesdays in 103 games, one 7-minute outlier only shifts your Tuesday mean by ~11 seconds. So a 49-second gap is more than one bad day—or your Tuesday sample is smaller than I think. What’s your Tuesday median vs mean, and how many Tuesdays have you actually got? If the median is near 4:12, it’s probably a couple of sloggy puzzles; if the median is also around 5:00, something real is happening.

Same here—my Tuesday solves always feel clunky, like my brain hasn’t booted up yet.

For what it's worth, tuesday is my cursed Wordle day too, but the trend line says noise. Coffee first, panic later.

Ha, Tuesday is my pharmacy errand day, so my brain’s already fried—CRANE doesn’t stand a chance.

My 60-game tab says Tuesdays are cursed too, so it's not just you.

One thing the day-of-week replies haven’t touched: weekday isn’t a feature of the puzzle, so it’s probably noise unless the answer list is biased. Try a permutation test—shuffle your 103 times across the seven labels 1,000 times and count how often Tuesday beats the rest by ≥53 sec. With only ~15 Tuesdays, I’d bet that’s common. Also log guess count and answer traits (double letters, Y, uncommon patterns). My slow days track with double-letter answers, not any weekday. Did you record the actual answers? If so, compare Tuesday solutions against the rest before blaming your coffee.

I had a Tuesday slump too, then realized it was my pre-coffee scroll habit. Brains are weird.

tuesday is just cursed, my spreadsheet says the same and I've accepted it 😂

I’m back on my own tracking grind after a regain, so I respect the 103-row spreadsheet. Not Tuesday for me, but my slow solves cluster around word shape, not weekday. I tagged double letters, uncommon letters, and whether I got 3+ greens by row 3. My average jumps about 40s on double-letter days. Tuesday could just have more of those in your sample. Does the gap survive if you filter out double-letter answers? Also, do you log time of day? My 6am solves are way slower than 9am ones, and that alone could fake a weekday pattern.

I’d add a “when did I actually do it?” column before blaming Tuesdays. My Wordle times looked awful on Tuesdays too, but it turned out those were all after grocery pickup, while I was hiding by the snack drawer with a kid yelling for goldfish. Sunday solves happen before anyone’s up. Same starter, totally different brain. Do you log time of day or interruptions, not just weekday? That’s the confound I’d check first.

do you log guess count too, or just time? Time can get skewed by one 6/6. My 64-game tab: mean 4:03, median 3:47. Tuesdays actually had three 6s—those alone dragged the Tuesday average from 4:18 to 4:52. Strip the worst outlier and the day gap mostly disappears. Also, Wordle answers aren’t perfectly balanced by weekday; some Tuesday slots cluster around -ER/-ATCH endings. Are you comparing mean or median? If mean, I’d re-run with medians and 5+ guess rate before blaming the word list.

Tuesday is my slowest too! I wonder if your Tuesday mornings just feel different? 🤔

For me the Tuesday lag was interruptions, not the word list. I do Wordle while the kids eat and I restock the snack drawer, so if I start the clock and then get up for a granola bar or lost shoe, my time balloons. Try adding an “interrupted?” column, or note when you actually tap the first letter vs when you opened the app. Does your Tuesday gap survive if you do it in a quiet bathroom break instead of mid-morning chaos?

Tuesday is my 8am chem lab, so my Wordle brain is basically still buffering.

Night shift here. My Tuesday gap was sleep debt, not Wordle. I logged hours since waking, not just day. Tuesdays I was playing after a 10-hour shift, half dead. Sundays after real sleep. Time dropped when I moved it to after I woke up. What time are you actually playing on Tuesdays? Day-of-week is probably a proxy for when you're wrecked.

Fellow spreadsheet nerd here. I’d check Tuesday’s median, not the average. One 11-minute disaster can drag a 103-game mean by ~6 seconds, which is most of your 49-second gap. Also log guess count next to time—maybe Tuesdays are same accuracy but slower coffee/sleep, not harder words. I track maintenance weight the same way: 7-day median, not one weird Tuesday. What’s your Tuesday median, and how many 6/6 solves do you have vs other days?

my tiny sample says tuesday too, so either we're both cursed or the word list hates tuesdays lol

I’d add a “got interrupted?” checkbox before blaming the word list. My tiny log showed my slowest solves weren’t hard words—they were mornings when I started, then checked email or refilled coffee between guesses. Once I split times into one-sitting vs distracted, the day-of-week gap mostly vanished. Did you note whether Tuesdays are more fractured for you—school run, work standup, gym? Even a rough “paused?” column might tell you more than the weekday itself. Also, do you log time of day? My 7am solves are much cleaner than my 11am ones, and that surprised me more than any Tuesday pattern.

Tuesdays are my heavy squat day, so my Wordle brain is toast by 6am 😂