I just redid the puzzle to see if I could find more hints to what I do. (fyi: This time I did it in 5:56. Seems whenever I do a puzzle more than once, I get worse. LOL. Plus I didn't have my coffee yet.)

It confused me the first time I used the ghost also. But it's good for just putting in major color shapes. After that, I tend to forget it's there. If that still doesn't work, try putting the thumbnail up so you can see where the major blocks of color go.

Also don't worry about picking out all the edges first. That's a time killer. Put together the color patterns first. For example, on today's puzzle, while I was placing the edges around, I also did the black spaces right down the middle of the barn since those were easy to see. I was also putting in the roof line because that too was black and once I added the black, it was easy to add the white of the rest of the roof.

Lastly, and this one will seem counter intuitive, but don't rush. If you don't rush, you'll relax more and it will be easier to see the pieces.