Lots of research shows that doing mental exercises can ward off dementia and the effects of aging, but can it actually make you better at your job? While it’s hard to imagine the late musical theater virtuoso Stephen Sondheim needing any kind of extra creative stimuli, he in fact had a well-known love of stimulating puzzles and games.

And he didn’t just play them. The Tony-winning composer behind Broadway hits such as Sweeney Todd, Company, and a heartwarming ditty about presidential assassins also cultivated a side hustle as a designer of cryptic crossword puzzles and a frequent host of game nights and scavenger hunts.

Barry Joseph, a game researcher and designer and an adjunct professor at New York University, happened to notice a few years ago that no one had documented Sondheim’s nic

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