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 901–960.
The Trial
When activated, hold one small towel in each hand and make twenty fast controlled downward beats while standing still, then stop immediately.
Why it helps
You turn cliff fellowship into one concrete experience with a visible finish.
5 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Make a rattle from a lidded bottle with a spoonful of rice in it and fold two paper fans, then stand still in a dim room. A consenting helper sweeps a torch beam around the room, aimed at chest height and never at your eyes, and at a random moment holds it on you for two seconds; before it moves off, shake the rattle and raise both fans into one upward crescent over your head, three times in one minute.
Why it helps
A fast, theatrical burst that is fun to perform and to watch.
4 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Tape two squares on grass or a clear floor with at least a one-metre gap between them and a line along the middle of the gap. Each player stands in their own square facing the other and, for twenty seconds, performs as many jumps as possible with both arms flared wide overhead at the top of each jump; the player with more full displays holds the patch.
Why it helps
A silly, breathless duel that gets the heart pumping fast.
3 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Take a disagreement you were going to let run and state your position once, early, at full size: what you want, what you will not do, said plainly out loud before anyone is annoyed. No shrinking it and no going in hard.
Why it helps
Letting a disagreement drift means it gets settled when everyone is already angry. Stating your size early is uncomfortable for a minute and usually ends the whole thing before it starts.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Fit a pleated paper ring round a bottle neck so it sits folded up against the neck, with a consenting partner standing over it. In sixty seconds the partner calls "threat" five times at random, mixed with decoy words such as "thread", "three" and "treat"; on each "threat" you have two seconds to spread the collar flat outward, folding it back only when the partner says "gone", and a flare on a decoy or a late flare fails the run.
Why it helps
A fast, jumpy reaction game that shows how much a display depends on timing and on where the viewer stands.
6 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Fold a strip of bright paper into a flat fan and clip it lying flat against the back of your head or a headband. A helper calls out twenty quick words at random, with 'crown' hidden among them five times; flick the crest fully open the instant you hear 'crown', then fold it flat again before the next word.
Why it helps
A fast, giggly reaction game that sharpens attention under pressure.
5 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Wear a bright shirt under a zipped green or brown jacket and stand still against leaves or a plain wall. On a signal, unzip to show the colour, stand tall with chest out, bob your head three times, then zip up and go still again, all within ten seconds.
Why it helps
Ten seconds of bold, playful confidence and a clip that makes people laugh.
3 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Hide a bright object. On a random cue, reveal it, sprint to another safe position and conceal it again. Complete three rounds.
Why it helps
Builds reaction, quick repositioning and control under fast transitions.
4 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Pair one distraction and one departure in the same instant today rather than doing them in sequence, and leave while the attention is still on the distraction.
Why it helps
Creating a distraction and then leaving separately means you are watched the whole way out. Doing both at once means the attention never catches up with you.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Wear a bold striped or black-and-yellow top under a plain brown or grey jacket or blanket, and sit doing something calm. When a consenting helper claps at a moment of their choosing within five minutes, throw off the cover, raise your arms and wave your fingertips, all within three seconds.
Why it helps
A quick, funny reaction game with a bold finish.
5 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Instead of searching something thoroughly today, do one thing that makes it reveal what it is holding, and take what comes out.
Why it helps
Searching something thoroughly takes you all day and you still miss what is tucked away. Making it give things up produces more in an hour.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Start with yourself as normal: flat, pleasant, giving nothing away. Then say the boundary you have been avoiding, out loud and at full volume, without stopping or softening it. No apologising afterwards.
Why it helps
Unspoken limits get crossed, every time. Saying it once, clearly and early, costs you almost nothing and spares you the blow-up that comes from waiting until you are already furious.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
The next time today that someone crosses a line with you, say the consequence out loud before you act on it, in one sentence, calmly: what you will do and when, if it continues. Then stop talking. Do not apply the consequence in that moment.
Why it helps
Swallowing a crossed line until you snap costs you the relationship and your credibility at once. Naming the consequence calmly, in advance, usually ends the behaviour without you ever having to follow through.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Cut two stiff white card plumes about thirty centimetres long and tape each firmly along a forearm so it stands up past the hand. Set four moves, such as plumes up, plumes crossed, a half turn and a crouch with plumes framing your face, then perform them three times in a row inside fifteen seconds in a cleared space; any move out of order or a plume that droops sends you back to the start of round one.
Why it helps
A fast, funny performance that sharpens timing and body control.
5 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Pick one thing you want to say publicly today. Say it once, loudly and visibly, then go completely quiet on it for the rest of the day with no follow-up of any kind.
Why it helps
Saying something loudly and then hovering around it turns the statement into a conversation you have to manage. One loud pass and then silence leaves it standing on its own.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Keep one capability completely flat today while doing ordinary work, and resist the moments where showing it would feel satisfying but gain nothing.
Why it helps
Showing what you can do when there is nothing to gain spends the surprise and invites attention you did not want. Keeping it flat keeps it worth something later.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Use the same arrangement today for both your working period and your waiting period, and dismantle whatever separate setup you had for waiting.
Why it helps
A separate setup for the quiet hours means you change over twice a day and lose things in between. One arrangement that covers both removes the changeover entirely.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Make no response your default today for one recurring pressure, and keep your strong reaction entirely in reserve for if the stillness actually fails.
Why it helps
Reacting as a default means you spend yourself on pressures that would have passed. Stillness first means your strong reaction is still available when it matters.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Lie flat on your front on the floor, arms wide, for ten minutes, in the coolest moving air you can find - an open window, a fan, outdoors. Breathe slowly and do not get up, check anything, or change position beyond small shifts. Let the air move over you and notice what settles.
Why it helps
You try to recover sitting upright with a screen in your hands, which is why rest never restores you. Ten minutes flat in moving air resets you more than an hour of that does.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take something you have been doing privately out of caution and do it in the open today, in a place where it is unremarkable rather than hidden.
Why it helps
Doing things privately out of caution makes you look furtive if anyone notices. Doing the same thing somewhere it is unremarkable removes the risk entirely.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Stand in a clear space. Do three standing jumps from a dead stop, holding a flat squat for five seconds first so nothing is stored, and mark where you land. Then do three more where you drop into the squat and spring straight back out, marking those. Compare the two sets of marks.
Why it helps
Starting from flat is why your efforts feel laborious and get mediocre results. Seeing how far the loaded version carries you tells you when to wind up instead of grinding straight in.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Work out which direction scrutiny on something of yours actually comes from today, and orient what you present toward that direction specifically.
Why it helps
Presenting toward the front when scrutiny comes from above means your effort is wasted. Establishing the direction first makes the same display work.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take a space, slot or window you cannot currently use because your setup is too big, and slim the setup today until it fits. Then use it once.
Why it helps
A setup too big for the available slots means you only work in rare large windows. Slimming it to fit means the small windows become usable and there are far more of them.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Reduce your profile today so you can stay inside the minimal cover available while still seeing out, rather than seeking better cover.
Why it helps
Looking for better cover on open ground means moving in the open to find it. Lowering your profile makes the cover you already have enough.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Press a plastic teaspoon's handle flat on a table under one hand, put a pompom in the bowl of the spoon, and pull the bowl down under one fingertip so it bends. When a random-interval timer app signals, you have thirty seconds to land five pompoms in a bowl one metre away, each launched only by slipping the fingertip off, aiming away from faces.
Why it helps
A quick, fiddly burst that shows how stored force outperforms a push.
4 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Fold five small paper tents and stand them at different spots along the far end of a table. Knock all five over within thirty seconds by flicking a bottle cap at them, each shot a single flick: cock a finger against your thumb, build the tension, and release.
Why it helps
A quick, competitive burst of precision that is easy to set up again and beat.
3 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Tape a paper cup to the end of a wooden spoon handle and tie a scrunched foil ball to it on a 30 cm string. Start a sixty-second timer and, with the ball hanging still each time, flick your wrist so the cup pivots up and catches the ball, five times before time runs out.
Why it helps
A quick, addictive skill toy you make in minutes.
10 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Lay a heavy hardback book flat on a table. Start a visible ten-second timer. Using only a wooden spoon handle or a ruler, slide its tip under one edge of the book and flip the book fully over in one push. Your hands may touch only the tool, never the book.
Why it helps
You waste energy pushing on every part of a problem at once. Finding the one edge where a small push gives lift gets you results fast, and the same habit works on stuck jobs and stuck plans.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Take only the usable part of something genuinely hazardous today, having first established exactly where the hazard sits.
Why it helps
Avoiding hazardous things entirely means leaving good material to rot. Knowing exactly where the hazard sits lets you take the rest safely.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take a stuck question and disturb it rather than studying it: change one input, ask it badly out loud, move something, run it wrong on purpose. Then stop completely for thirty seconds and notice what surfaced.
Why it helps
Staring at a stuck problem returns the same picture every time. Disturbing it and then genuinely pausing is what lets the thing you missed surface on its own.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Identify the single input that reliably keeps you functional, sleep, food, movement or one person. Take that one thing deliberately and in full today, and let the rest of the day be carried by it.
Why it helps
Treating the one input that keeps you functional as negotiable means you spend the rest of the day compensating for its absence. Taking it in full costs you an hour and carries everything else.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Tape two coins together and tie a short thread to them to make the snail, and show that it sinks in a basin of water. Tear small pieces of bubble wrap by hand and tape them one at a time into a raft on the other end of the thread, about 3 cm above the coins, testing after each, until the snail hangs below the raft without sinking.
Why it helps
A calm tinkering session with a real "it floats" moment.
15 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Float a loose mat of lettuce or herb leaves in a basin or sink of water. Tie or tuck torn pieces of the same leaves round one cork so they frill out like the mat, set it in the mat with a bare cork of the same size, and give the water one gentle swirl.
Why it helps
A gentle, hands-in-water making task with a satisfying reveal.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Punch ten discs from a spinach leaf with a straw and dissolve a pinch of baking soda and one drop of washing-up liquid in a glass of water. Put the discs and some of that water in a new needle-free syringe kept for kitchen use, cover the tip and pull the plunger a few times until the discs sink, then tip them into the glass in direct sun or under a bright desk lamp and wait until at least three float.
Why it helps
A quiet window-side experiment that makes photosynthesis visible.
20 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Get one input today from an unappealing source rather than the obvious pleasant one, because the obvious one does not contain it.
Why it helps
Taking everything from the obvious pleasant source leaves you short of whatever it lacks. The unappealing sources are uncontested and contain exactly that.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Lie flush with one situation today, no projection, no movement, no shadow, and stay in it for hours without acting.
Why it helps
Concealment you have to actively maintain slips the moment you are distracted. Lying flush and still costs you nothing and holds for hours.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take something you have no proper tool for and hit the same exact point repeatedly today until it gives, rather than looking for the right tool.
Why it helps
Looking for the right tool is often how you never start. Repeated impact at one point gets you through while you would still be searching.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Decide today's working level by the conditions rather than your plan. If your energy and the situation are good, work on the high-level thing; if not, drop to the low, concrete thing, and say which you chose and why.
Why it helps
Working at the level your plan says regardless of the day means you attempt hard thinking when depleted and waste good hours on admin. Reading the conditions first puts each hour where it is worth most.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick one route or process you have only ever done your own way and do it today alongside someone who has done it many times before, following their sequence rather than yours. Ask at each turn why that choice and not another.
Why it helps
Working out a well-travelled route by yourself costs you the years it took someone else to learn it. One session beside them hands you the whole map.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take something whose form you have copied, the template, the format, the style, and today match the behaviour behind it as well: the same cadence, the same preparation, the same follow-through.
Why it helps
Copying the look of something that works without copying how it is actually run gives you a shell that fools nobody for long. Matching the behaviour is the part that produces the same result.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Start something that will outlive your part in it: a sourdough starter, a seedling, a shared doc, a half-built thing. Then hand it to a real person, with their consent, and show them taking it on. It ends in their hands, not yours.
Why it helps
You skip things you will not personally see finished. Starting anyway and handing it on is how long work happens at all, and your leg counts even without the arrival.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Pour a spoonful of warm (not hot) tap water into each of two clean glass jars and stand a sprig picked by hand from a houseplant or herb in each. Close one jar with its lid, leave the other open, and stand both somewhere cool, such as a cool windowsill or a fridge shelf if the room is warm, for ten minutes.
Why it helps
A small, clear lesson in how shelter holds moisture.
15 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Fold one thing all the way down to ordinary today so nothing about it signals what it can do, and remove the traces that were still showing.
Why it helps
Turning something off while the signs of it still show means you get the attention without the benefit. Folding all the way down to ordinary is what actually buys you quiet.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take a small space or short slot you dismissed as too limited and fold more capacity into it today without expanding it: stack it, divide it, layer it, nest it. Keep the footprint identical.
Why it helps
Dismissing a space or slot as too small means it stays unused while you wait for a bigger one. Folding more into the same footprint usually doubles what it holds in half an hour.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Put your shoes on and fold a load of laundry at a spot no more than three steps from an interior doorway or a line taped on the floor, on the same level with no stairs or outside door in the path. Set a random timer app to sound once within ten minutes; the moment it sounds, drop what you are holding and cross the doorway or line within five seconds, then return and finish folding.
Why it helps
The laundry gets done, with a jolt of fun in the middle of a boring job.
15 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take a sheet of origami or wrapping paper that is bright on one side and plain on the other. Slowly make at least five folds into a flat packet no bigger than a playing card with the bright side completely tucked away, lay it on a plain brown or neutral surface where it blends in, then open one flap to flash the colour.
Why it helps
A quiet, careful few minutes of folding with a neat little reveal.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Put one thing you display away today while you do ordinary work, and bring it out only in the moment it is actually for.
Why it helps
Carrying your display open all the time makes you conspicuous while you are doing nothing worth seeing, and it wears out. Folding it away keeps it effective when it counts.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Make your default state today completely plain, with no part of your strong signal visible, and keep it that way all day.
Why it helps
A partly visible strong signal gets discounted before you ever use it. Keeping the default completely plain is what preserves its effect.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Stay entirely still on one thing today until it is genuinely within range, then take it in a single movement with no adjusting approach.
Why it helps
Moving towards something before it is in range tells it you are there and you lose it. Waiting folded until it is close means one movement is enough.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Follow one thing today into the place it keeps escaping to, the other channel, the other system, the other meeting, rather than waiting for it to come back out.
Why it helps
Waiting for something to come back out means it never does and you look passive. Going in after it is where its advantage stops working.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Name one condition you treat as unsuitable for you. Follow what you actually need into that condition today, work there for a real stretch, and do not retreat to the familiar one.
Why it helps
Ruling out conditions as unsuitable for you narrows where you can eat until you depend entirely on one place. Working a real stretch in an unfamiliar one tells you how much of the limit was yours.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Mark each person's sleeve with a bold stripe of tape. Before the walk, a helper secretly taps one walker, who may change direction whenever they choose; then the group walks close together round a garden, park or large room for two minutes without speaking, and everyone must follow any turn within a step or two by watching the stripes around them.
Why it helps
A quiet group game that shows how much coordination can happen without a word.
10 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick one decision today where you cannot see the whole picture. Instead of waiting for clarity, name the faintest real signal you already have, follow it one step, and act on where it leads.
Why it helps
Waiting until you can see the whole picture means the decision gets made for you by whoever moves first. Following the faint signal one step costs little and tells you far more than more waiting will.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Name one boundary you have been treating as fixed, a department, a region or a category. Follow what you actually need past that boundary today and make one real contact or move on the other side of it.
Why it helps
Treating a boundary as the edge of what is available means you keep working a pasture that has already been grazed out. Crossing it once shows you how much of your shortage was just the line.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Keep one group constant today while deliberately changing where it operates, rather than holding a location and letting membership change.
Why it helps
Holding a location while people come and go means rebuilding trust constantly. Keeping the group and moving the ground keeps everything you built.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Find out today what time-of-day pattern the thing you need follows, and go to where it is at the right depth rather than searching at a fixed one.
Why it helps
Searching at a fixed level means you miss the thing most of the day. One schedule tells you exactly where it is at any hour.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Give up one fixed position you are maintaining for something that no longer stays put, and today invest that effort in the ability to move to wherever it is instead.
Why it helps
Holding a position for something that has moved on costs you everything and returns nothing. Spending the same effort on being able to go where it is changes that immediately.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Follow the moving edge of something today rather than holding a fixed point along it, and move as it moves.
Why it helps
Holding a fixed point means the value passes you as the edge moves away. Following it keeps you on fresh ground the whole season.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Start one long record today that you will keep adding to, on something you currently only ever sample: the weekly number, the monthly note, the recurring observation. Make the first entry.
Why it helps
Sampling something occasionally means you argue about what is happening from fragments. A record you keep adding to answers it definitively in a year for two minutes a week.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Follow one person's actual track record for an extended period today before committing to anything, rather than relying on what they present.
Why it helps
Committing on what someone presents means discovering the trail afterwards. Following it first costs you an hour and changes some decisions entirely.
2 minDifficulty 1
