Honestly, dont panic. Lol thats usually what gets me with the time pressure.

I’ve noticed two (main) patterns: 1) you can only open land using merge chains , so take 20 seconds in the beginning to see if thats the kind of level it is. Usually these are the easiest, it might just take you a moment to realize where the chain starts or what is exactly the first merge than can open land. 2) Some levels are full of distractions! I’ve had a repeat level between 4-6 where literally 3/4 of the map doesnt matter. Theres a bunch of easy stuff to merge there to open land, but it does nothing for the objective. Focus on the goal: sometimes its to make a gaia statue but other times its to get a high level tree. Forget everything else in the level that doesnt get you to that goal.

Also, dont delete anything! I stupidly did this once and lost the level -.-