Yesterday I was finally able to start consistently finishing match madness in time.
The keys for me were maybe these:
1) really relaxing and not caring too much while doing it.
2) trying to make sure i got everything matched, sometimes by process of elimination but always trying to eliminate all of each side’s boxes. [edit: In other words, you try to get all six boxes (ahem…five) done away with before starting on the newly emerging ones. It’s not a major concern, but it does help especially because there can be a lag in the time new matching boxes emerge.]
3) sometimes starting on the right side’s boxes.
4) using an xp boost on it to sort of up the personal stakes since someone was trying to be competitive with me in my league.
5) spending a solid amount of time practicing and failing - like maybe an hour - a few days ago.
6) constant motion and being willing to select wrong boxes sometimes because I was upping the motion; accelerating my actions. This is an actual technique with a formal name. You get your subconscious more involved in the process this way because your subconscious brain wants to correct the mistakes you are making too quickly for your conscious brain to correct. I think the term is the Plateau Effect? I read about it in the highly influential memory book Moonwalking with Einstein which is referenced in this wikipedia page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plateau_effect
I hope this post will inspire others to realize that match madness is an achievable thing and inspires others to achieve it.
I hope at least someone benefits from these tips. At first I was only completing the match madness maybe 1 out of 20 or 50 times but yesterday i got to at least 5/6 times. [a sign that i was doing well and likely to make it to the end is if I had 50 seconds going into the final stretch, past the last stopping point]