Each Trial is a strategy a real species uses, turned into something you can run yourself in about ten minutes. Each card says what to do and why it helps.
What each Trial asks you to do, and what it does for you. Reading a Trial needs no account. 3,017 Trials across 2,325 species. Showing 661–720.
The Trial
Get something into a group or system you are not part of without joining it: send it to one person inside, leave it at the entrance, post it where they will find it. Deliver without entering.
Why it helps
Waiting until you are inside a group to contribute means waiting indefinitely. Delivering from the entrance gets the thing used now, and it is usually what gets you invited in.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Pick a short message, move briskly to its destination, deliver it clearly, and return immediately. Record the run and delivery in one video.
Why it helps
Trains decisive delivery under time pressure instead of spending energy perfecting something whose value is in reaching the destination.
5 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Go somewhere crowded today for twenty minutes deliberately, then leave and spend the rest of the day on your own work without returning. One dense contact, then dispersal.
Why it helps
Staying in the crowd all day means you get the contact and none of the work. Twenty dense minutes and then leaving gives you both of them.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Set up one conspicuous display today that you can deploy and remove within seconds, and use it twice without leaving it out.
Why it helps
A conspicuous thing that takes effort to put away gets left out and stops meaning anything. One you can remove in seconds keeps all its effect.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
First, with no timer, roll five small paper balls as eggs. Then set out five host spots about one and a half metres apart in one camera view, using potted plants or stand-ins such as cushions or chairs on a clear floor or garden. Start a fifteen-second timer and hurry to leave one egg resting on each spot (a leaf, pot rim or cushion top) so that none falls off.
Why it helps
Fifteen seconds of quick, careful movement around your home, powered by preparation you already did.
4 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Next time you report a problem, include four specifics so the person can choose a response without asking: what, where, how big, how fast it is moving. Send it with all four today.
Why it helps
A problem you report without detail turns into three rounds of questions before anyone can move. Four specifics in your first message means the person can act immediately.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Score and break one pomegranate into sections. With two other people around one bowl of water, work the seeds out with your fingers together until the peel is empty.
Why it helps
A shared snack job that goes fast and ends in something good to eat.
15 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Wear an opaque blindfold in a quiet, dimmed room while a partner stands silently with both arms out each round and slowly raises either a large tray or book from the side to about thirty centimetres from your face or nothing, in random order, ten times. Click your tongue and point up for tray or down for empty each time; aim for seven correct.
Why it helps
You hear a real echo from a real object, which almost nobody believes they can do.
12 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Take a repeated small intrusion you have been tolerating and add one mild friction that makes it not worth doing, rather than confronting anyone: the extra step, the moved item, the changed default.
Why it helps
Confronting someone over a small repeated intrusion costs you far more than the intrusion does. One mild friction ends it without a conversation and nobody has to lose.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Replace one undifferentiated alarm you use today with at least two distinct signals for threats needing opposite responses.
Why it helps
One alarm for everything means people guess the response and half of them guess wrong, including you. Two distinct signals make the right reaction automatic.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Name two settings you move between that you currently handle identically - work and home, one group and another, online and in person. Pick the method you default to in both. Today, deliberately use a different method in the second setting: if you usually talk, listen; if you usually plan, improvise. Hold the swap for the whole time you are there.
Why it helps
Using one approach everywhere is why it works well in one place and badly in another, and you blame the place. Matching the method to the room removes friction you assumed was unavoidable.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Name the part of your work nobody sees and nobody thanks you for - the cleaning, the filing, the chasing, the preparation. Do that part first today, before anything visible, and finish it completely. Do not mention it to anyone afterwards.
Why it helps
Doing the visible work first leaves the invisible part undone, and that is the part everything else rests on. Finishing it before anyone is watching removes the quiet failures you keep being surprised by.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take one thing you normally approach cautiously and backwards. Go into it directly and head first today, lead with the thing you usually save for last, and complete the approach that way.
Why it helps
Approaching things backwards means you spend most of the encounter on preliminaries and arrive at the real point with no time or nerve left. Leading with it gets a straight answer while you still can act on it.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Instead of relocating to find better conditions, improve the spot you are already in using only what you have to hand today: block the draught, raise the screen, clear the surface, add the lamp.
Why it helps
Waiting to relocate somewhere better means putting up with the current conditions indefinitely. Improving where you are with what you have usually takes twenty minutes and you stop noticing the problem.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Name the two worst periods in your year, not only the obvious one. Plan a real shutdown for the second one today, write the dates down, and tell one person it is happening.
Why it helps
Planning around only your obvious bad season means the second one takes you by surprise every year and you treat the collapse as a personal failure. Dating it in advance makes it a rest instead.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Identify where your best input actually comes from, the person, the place, the time of day, and instead of moving away from it because the conditions around it are uncomfortable, change your setup so you can stay there. Make that adjustment and use it once.
Why it helps
You drift away from your best source because sitting near it is uncomfortable, then wonder why the quality dropped. Adjusting your own setup to tolerate it keeps the supply and costs one afternoon.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take an accumulation you have been treating as a problem, the old files, the stack, the backlog, and dig a useful space into it rather than clearing it: carve out one working area inside the pile and use it today.
Why it helps
Treating a pile as something to clear means it never gets touched because clearing it is a day you do not have. Digging one usable space into it takes an hour and the pile stops blocking you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Name two problems you currently handle separately. Build or set up one arrangement today that handles both at once, and stop one of the two separate measures.
Why it helps
Handling two problems with two separate measures means you maintain both forever and neither gets your full attention. One arrangement covering both halves what you have to keep running.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Build the structure that will amplify one signal today before producing the signal itself, in that order.
Why it helps
Producing a signal before building what carries it means repeating yourself and still not reaching anyone. Building the structure first means saying it once.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Instead of chasing something today, spend the time building the thing that makes it come to you: the listing, the open slot, the standing invitation, the published signal.
Why it helps
Chasing each opportunity separately means starting from nothing every time. One thing built that brings them to you keeps working while you do something else.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Go after the buried part of one resource today rather than the surface part everyone has already taken, and use the right tool for digging rather than picking.
Why it helps
Taking the surface part means you compete with everyone for what is nearly gone. Going after the buried part is harder once and uncontested for the whole season.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Bury ten in-shell pistachios or peanuts completely in a tray of dry rice. Dip in and dig with your fingers until you find one, crack its shell open by hand, set the kernel aside, then dig for the next.
Why it helps
A tactile, rhythmic snack break that rewards patience.
10 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Do one job today without the obvious hard tool, using pressure, flow or suction instead, and establish that it works.
Why it helps
Reaching for the hard tool first means you apply force where finesse would do, and usually cause damage. Pressure or flow does the same job cleanly for you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Name one thing you have not started because you lack the proper tool or skill. Do it today with the unsuitable thing you already have, and finish a real piece of it that way.
Why it helps
Waiting for the right tool is the most respectable way to never start, and you can stay there for years. Doing a real piece with the wrong tool tells you in one afternoon whether the tool was the problem.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Apply something that breaks one oversized thing down in place today, wait for it to work, and only then take it.
Why it helps
Trying to break something larger than you by force fails and damages your tools. Applying the solvent and waiting takes the same time and works.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Engage with one situation today without breaking into it: observe, press lightly, read what moves, and do not commit or intervene at all.
Why it helps
Breaking into a situation to understand it means you are now part of it and cannot see it. Resting on the surface tells you what is actually moving.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Choose one small brown object and arrange it against a brown or barred background so its outline is difficult to notice from two metres away.
Why it helps
You turn revelation into one concrete experience with a visible finish.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Choose one household object and place it against the closest matching colour or pattern you can find. Photograph it from normal viewing distance.
Why it helps
You create concealment by reducing contrast rather than hiding the object away.
6 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Choose explicitly today which of two inherited approaches you will pass on, and stop transmitting the other even if you keep using it.
Why it helps
Passing on everything you inherited means whoever follows you gets the contradiction too. Choosing one to transmit is what makes it usable for them.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Point the same learning habit at whatever your current place actually contains today, rather than at what you used it on last.
Why it helps
Aiming your learning habit at what worked last place means ignoring what this one offers. One survey redirects the same capacity to something better.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Take something you set up well for yourself and make it survive without you: write the note that explains it, label the thing, record the password, tell one other person how it works. Do it for one thing today.
Why it helps
Everything you set up well dies with your memory of it, which is why things break the week you are away. One usable handover note means the thing survives you and nobody has to rebuild it.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Switch today between dispersing and converging according to whether what you need is spread out or contracted, rather than keeping one pattern.
Why it helps
Keeping one pattern means being spread out when you should concentrate and crowded when you should spread. Switching to match costs nothing.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take something too large to deal with whole and break it down in place today, reducing it to parts before moving any of it: sort, split, decide, discard.
Why it helps
Trying to take something on whole is why it has sat untouched for weeks. Reducing it to parts first means you only ever handle pieces you can actually lift.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Check the finish first and skip plated, gold-tone, brass or stone-surround fittings. Photograph the scaled nozzles of a shower head, or a tap aerator if your shower head is clean, then soak it in plain white vinegar for at least fifteen minutes, unscrewed in a bowl or with a bag of vinegar tied around it. Rub the holes with an old toothbrush, rinse by running the water, and photograph the same face again.
Why it helps
A shower that sprays evenly again, cleaned with something from the kitchen cupboard.
20 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Decide explicitly today whether your safety on something comes from terrain or from distance, and build the matching habit.
Why it helps
Building terrain habits when your safety comes from distance leaves you slow in the open. Deciding which it is tells you what to practise.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Distinguish two things you have been treating as the same today by examining a channel nobody has been measuring, and state the difference.
Why it helps
Measuring the usual dimensions means two different things look identical to you and you treat them the same. One unexamined channel often separates them completely.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
A helper buries five buttons at the bottom of a deep tub of dried rice or lentils while you look away. Make repeated dives: plunge one hand to the very bottom and search by feel for ten seconds, then lift it out and pause ten seconds, until all five are found.
Why it helps
A tactile search game that trains touch and patience.
10 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take six visually similar objects, inspect them closely, and divide them into at least two evidence-based groups using a subtle feature. Photograph the final groups.
Why it helps
Practises revising a broad category when closer evidence reveals meaningful hidden divisions inside something that first looked uniform.
7 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Replace one solid structure today with a divided version that works as well at your scale and folds away when unused.
Why it helps
A solid structure takes up space the whole time whether you are using it or not. A divided one does the same job and disappears between uses.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Bring one thing to you today by changing the conditions around it rather than going to get it, and cover no distance yourself during the attempt.
Why it helps
Going to fetch everything yourself means the distance is the whole cost and you cannot scale it. Changing the conditions so it arrives takes the distance out entirely.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Deliberately use a long-range capability today on something close and productive rather than on something distant, and name why.
Why it helps
Having the range to go far makes distant options feel like the point. Pointing the same capability at productive nearby ground usually pays you more.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Stop searching for one thing today and hold the position where your advantage already exists, letting it come to you instead of going out to find it.
Why it helps
Going out to look for something destroys the advantage of already being in the right place, and you pay for the search as well. Holding position costs nothing.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Work across two levels today that others treat as separate specialisms, doing a real piece of work at each rather than choosing one.
Why it helps
Specialising to one level means the band next to it belongs to someone else. Working both yourself means the whole middle is yours.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take something of yours that keeps attracting the wrong attention and break up its outline rather than hiding it: split the file, rename the parts, separate the components, remove the recognisable grouping.
Why it helps
Hiding something whole means it is still one findable thing the moment anyone looks. Breaking the outline means nothing you own matches the shape people are searching for.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Before committing to a long slow approach today, establish that your survival until the payoff is close to certain, and say what secures it.
Why it helps
A long slow approach is excellent if you are certain to still be there, and ruinous if not. Naming what secures your survival decides which.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Approach one thing today in a way that disturbs it as little as possible while you assess it, moving slowly enough that your own movement adds nothing to what you read.
Why it helps
Arriving loudly to find out what is going on changes what is going on, and then you are reading your own effect. A quiet approach shows you the real thing.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick one ordinary task and do it exactly while the light is changing at dawn or dusk rather than in full day or full dark. Notice one thing that is easier at that moment than at either end.
Why it helps
You discover that one recurring task genuinely belongs at an hour you never do it.
12 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Stand in a cleared space inside a marked circle two big steps wide. A helper stands three metres away and throws ten rolled pairs of socks at your body, below shoulder height, in thirty seconds; twist, duck and sidestep to avoid them without leaving the circle, and if more than three touch you, replay the round.
Why it helps
A fast, funny burst of agility that gets the heart going.
3 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Take off any glasses. Your partner stands with feet planted, holding a foam pool noodle and wearing a hat with a sticker on it, and aims every strike below your shoulders, never at the head. Circle and feint to draw strikes, sidestepping each one, and after three missed strikes close in and tag the sticker with a light hand tap, all within thirty seconds.
Why it helps
A fast, laughing reflex duel with nothing sharp involved.
4 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
In a dimmed room with a clear floor, shine a torch at a large bare wall, keeping the beam on the wall and never toward the helper. For sixty seconds a helper tries to tap the spot with a rolled-up tea towel; you vanish it with a click and relight it elsewhere on the wall, and they count taps landed aloud. A rematch is allowed.
Why it helps
A fast, funny reaction game for two that sharpens anticipation.
4 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Pick one thing you have been guilty about leaving dormant and formally park it today with a wake date, rather than carrying it as an open failure.
Why it helps
Things left open but not progressing cost you guilt every week and produce nothing. Formally parking one with a wake date removes the guilt and loses you nothing real.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Pick one thing you keep doing in small amounts every day without it getting anywhere - checking, tidying, nibbling at a project. Do none of it today. Instead set one window later in the week and plan to take the whole thing at once in that window. Today's job is only to stop.
Why it helps
Daily nibbling at something keeps it permanently open in your head while never finishing it. Stopping entirely and taking it in one window later frees the attention it has been costing you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Identify the single richest source available to you right now and how long it will last. Spend today taking from it exclusively, decline every other opportunity, and record how much you accumulated.
Why it helps
Grazing across several sources during a narrow rich window means you leave it with nowhere near enough to carry you. Going exclusive for the window is what lets you clear a whole stretch in one go.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Work one brief window today immediately after something has passed, and be clear of it before the next arrives rather than lingering.
Why it helps
Waiting for a calm moment that never comes means the window behind each disruption goes unused. Moving in right after one passes gets you the whole band nobody else works.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Find a safe set of stairs and come down them backwards, facing up, three times, with a hand on the rail. Then name one task you have only ever approached from one direction and do the next ten minutes of it from the opposite end: start at the finish, read the last page first, call the last person first.
Why it helps
Approaching everything from the same end is why some tasks have stayed impossible for you for years. Reversing the direction often turns out to cost nothing and removes the blockage entirely.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Change the axis of one search today from across to down, or down to across, and note that it reaches a different population.
Why it helps
Searching along the same axis as everyone else means you compete for the same population. Turning it ninety degrees finds one nobody is working.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Adopt an existing recognised signal today rather than creating your own, so that the recognition people already have works for you.
Why it helps
Inventing your own signal means teaching everyone what it means first. Adopting one people already recognise works for you from the first moment.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Stop defending one space today where your activity costs nothing, and let others occupy it alongside you.
Why it helps
Defending a space your activity does not actually consume costs you attention for nothing. Letting others in loses you nothing and buys goodwill.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick one thing you have been protecting by keeping quiet about it - a project, a plan, a person. When someone gets close to it today, do not deny or deflect. Offer them something real and nearby instead: a different topic you genuinely will talk about, and stay with that until the attention has moved.
Why it helps
Denying or deflecting makes people more curious about the thing you were protecting. Offering something real and nearby instead moves attention away without anyone noticing that a defence happened at all.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Fill a glass with water, sit down with your elbows on the table and drink it through a thin coffee stirrer or cocktail straw until it is empty. Take as long as it needs.
Why it helps
A slow, full glass of water you would otherwise not have drunk.
10 minDifficulty 1
