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 1,081–1,140.
Amazon River Dolphin · River-Curve PlayThe Trial
While you look away, a helper stands twelve plastic cups in a random cluster on a table between a start edge and a target saucer. Blindfolded, push a coin with one fingertip from the start to the saucer, feeling ahead with your other hand and turning slowly around each cup.
Why it helps
A slow, absorbing puzzle that sharpens touch and spatial sense.
10 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
With a consenting partner, stand several metres apart and use one angled board or book on the floor to redirect a softly rolled ball into their hands.
Why it helps
You turn thermal command into one concrete experience with a visible finish.
5 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Tuck a two-metre ribbon or paper streamer into the back of your waistband. Walk slowly around a table, between two chairs and through one doorway and back, choosing every turn so the streamer never catches.
Why it helps
A slow, surprisingly absorbing lesson in how much room you really take up.
8 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Secure one independent supply today, then go and work in a place others avoid because that supply is missing there.
Why it helps
Avoiding places that lack what you need means you are always where everyone else is. Bringing your own supply makes those places yours alone.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Fill a basin with a few centimetres of water, check first that one hole-punch paper dot is sucked easily into your baster's tip (tear the dots in half if it is not), then hold the clean baster with its bulb squeezed and its tip just above the surface in the middle. A consenting helper rolls a die off camera to pick each moment and drops one dot onto the water within ten centimetres of the tip, and you make one quick lunge, releasing the bulb to suck the dot in; do five drops.
Why it helps
A quick, competitive table game that sharpens timing.
3 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Float ten cereal rings in a wide bowl of water and hold an empty soft plastic bottle with a mouth wider than the rings, such as a sports or squash bottle, squeezed in one hand. On go, bring the mouth of the bottle next to one ring and release the squeeze suddenly so the ring is sucked inside, then squeeze again for the next one, until all ten are in the bottle within sixty seconds of go.
Why it helps
A fast, splashy physics game that makes suction feeding click.
5 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Build one defence today that works at the moment of contact rather than at a distance, and then stop concealing the thing it protects.
Why it helps
Concealing something because you have no defence at contact means hiding it forever. One contact-stage defence lets you put it in the open.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Replace one heavy defence you maintain today with a cheaper one that works before contact: the stated policy, the known reputation, the visible condition.
Why it helps
Maintaining a heavy defence costs you constantly and only helps once contact happens. A cheap signal that works at a distance prevents the contact.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Find one partial measure you are carrying that is too small to protect but still costs you, and today either complete it properly or remove it entirely. No middle option.
Why it helps
A half-measure costs you upkeep and protects nothing, which is the worst available outcome. Completing or removing it takes one decision and ends the drain either way.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Build today's schedule on the assumption that half your available period is gone, fitting everything into the remainder with no deferral.
Why it helps
Planning as if the whole period is available means you defer things into time that does not exist. Assuming half is gone makes your plan actually fit.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Rest one half of what you use today while the other half keeps going slowly, rather than trying to stop completely or not at all.
Why it helps
Trying to stop completely when you cannot means you never rest at all. Resting half while the rest ticks over slowly actually recovers you.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Identify the channel your message is also travelling through that you have not been attending to today, and deliberately use it.
Why it helps
Attending only to the obvious channel means half of what decides things is happening without you. Using the other one is often what closes it.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Build today for the half of your year that is unusable, rather than trying to find work in it.
Why it helps
Trying to find work in a period that is genuinely unusable produces nothing and exhausts you. Building for it means you come out intact.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Pick the last person who cooked, bought or shared food with you. Divide your next snack or portion into two equal halves, hand one to them and say out loud what they did for you.
Why it helps
A small, warm exchange that strengthens a relationship you rely on.
5 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Move through one task today without releasing any hold before the next is secure, and choose a version of it that does not require speed.
Why it helps
Letting go of one thing before the next is secure is how you end up holding nothing at all. Overlapping every hold means no single step can drop you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Hand over something you are currently leading today while you are still coping with it, rather than waiting until you are struggling. Name a successor and transfer it.
Why it helps
Handing something over only once you are exhausted means you pass on a mess and recover slowly. Swapping while you are still fine costs nothing and the whole thing keeps moving.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick a large-type headline from a magazine, newspaper or cereal box with no personal information on it. On a slip of paper of similar colour, hand-letter one new word of at least five letters in that exact typeface, copying letter shapes, stroke weight and spacing, and lay it over one of the printed words in the line. Pick a word that does not already appear in that headline.
Why it helps
You learn to see letter shapes the way a designer does, and end up with a convincing fake-print word to show people.
15 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Hide your involvement in one thing today rather than reducing it, so the help lands without your presence shaping the outcome.
Why it helps
Reducing your help so it does not distort the outcome means the thing gets less of what it needs. Hiding your involvement delivers all of it cleanly.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Tape eight 20 cm strands of yarn round the rim of a paper plate and wrap a small band of tape, sticky side out, round each strand 1 to 3 cm above its tip. Hang the plate from a string tied to a chair back or cupboard handle so the strand tips just touch a tray, scatter tissue-paper confetti around the tray's edge, and gently fan it with a piece of card so scraps drift and flutter into the strands; re-scatter and keep fanning until at least five scraps are stuck.
Why it helps
A calm, gentle making project with a satisfying catch at the end.
20 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Redesign one routine so it needs exactly one thing to be true rather than several, then run it today somewhere it would not normally have been possible.
Why it helps
A routine needing four conditions happens on the days all four align, which for you is almost never. Reducing it to one requirement means it happens nearly every day.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take something you protect by watching it and move it somewhere the threat physically cannot reach instead: the high shelf, the locked account, the other room, the offline copy. Relocate it rather than guarding it better.
Why it helps
Guarding something is a cost you pay every day forever. Moving it where the problem physically cannot reach is one afternoon and then you stop thinking about it.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Open ten paperclips into small hooks, hook them through the pages or cover of a notebook, and hang it from a shelf edge, curtain rail or towel bar at low height over a soft surface. Leave it hanging, still, for five minutes with a timer running in view.
Why it helps
A small patient engineering puzzle that shows how spread-out grip adds up.
12 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Pick something with ready-made openings: a pegboard, the slots of a wire rack or dish drainer, the holes of a colander, an old wall plug or an empty screw-in hook.
Why it helps
A tidy result with no drilling, dust or damage.
15 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Change one default today so the state you want is what happens when you do nothing, and remove the maintenance you were doing to achieve it.
Why it helps
If the state you want needs daily action it will not survive a bad week. Making it the default means you get it on the days you forget entirely.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Put one thing today where getting to it is inherently difficult rather than where you would have to watch it, and stop the guarding that place required.
Why it helps
Guarding something means it is only safe while you are watching, and you have other things to do. Putting it somewhere inherently hard to reach is safe when you are not there.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Find one thing you are currently holding up by continuous effort. Build or install the arrangement today that holds it without you, then stop providing the effort and watch it hold.
Why it helps
Anything you hold up by continuous effort takes that effort forever and falls the week you are ill. One arrangement that holds it passively gives you the same result and your attention back.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Combine one firm rule with one flexible accommodation in the same arrangement today, so it both catches and holds.
Why it helps
An arrangement that is all firm catches nothing it cannot hook, and all soft slides off edges under you. Both together grips where neither would.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Combine one element that catches on structure with one that conforms to the surface today, in the same arrangement, and use it.
Why it helps
Something that only catches on structure fails on smooth ground, and something that only conforms slides off edges. Both together holds anywhere you stand.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Fix the shape of something today while it is still soft and changeable, and only then let it harden into its final form.
Why it helps
Formalising something before its shape is right means living with the wrong shape permanently. Settling it while soft costs you a day.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Establish today whether one edge of yours is made by you or collected from elsewhere, and if collected, verify the source is still supplying.
Why it helps
An edge you collect rather than make stops the moment the source does, and you will find out the hard way. One check tells you which yours is.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Find one difference between two layers of your situation today and work across that difference rather than pushing forward in either.
Why it helps
Pushing forward within one layer means spending your own energy the whole way. Crossing the gradient repeatedly gets you the distance for almost nothing.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Find a fragile intermediate step in something of yours, the handoff, the draft that gets lost, the temporary file, and remove the step entirely today rather than making it safer.
Why it helps
Protecting a fragile intermediate step means maintaining it forever and it still fails on you sometimes. Removing it entirely means that failure mode is gone permanently.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Complete one entire short cycle today within hours of its condition appearing, rather than preparing a response over days.
Why it helps
Preparing a response over days means the window has closed before you move. Completing the whole cycle in hours is the only version that catches it.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Complete a whole short cycle today inside one window, including the step that sets up the next occurrence, and defer nothing past the window.
Why it helps
Finishing the visible work and skipping the part that sets up next time means you start from nothing again. Including it inside the window is what makes it repeat.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
In a park or garden, use a sound meter app on a second device, such as a tablet or old phone, to take a ten-second reading at the edge nearest the busiest noise and at two spots further back. Carry your towel to the quietest spot and lie out on it, still, for ten minutes.
Why it helps
Ten minutes of real quiet, found by measurement instead of guesswork.
16 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Scatter ten rolled socks on the floor around a basket placed at waist height on a chair. On go, squat all the way down, grab one sock, stand fully and drop it in the basket, then go straight back down, until all ten are in within sixty seconds.
Why it helps
A one-minute leg burner that doubles as tidying the socks.
3 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Carry your own cover with you today rather than relying on finding it, accepting that moving will be slower and more awkward.
Why it helps
Relying on finding cover where you land means sometimes there is none and you are exposed. Carrying it costs you speed and you are never caught out.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Prepare three rough options today and let the other party choose which to finish, and note that the unchosen ones still occupy the space.
Why it helps
Presenting one finished option means a no leaves you with nothing. Three rough ones get you a yes and the two refusals still hold the ground.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Stop one build at half-finished today and get it inspected by whoever will use it before you complete any more.
Why it helps
Finishing before anyone inspects it means rebuilding the whole thing when they do not want it. Stopping halfway costs you nothing and saves the rest.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Make a simple open-fronted den under a table or among cushions and take in a shelled or peeled snack, such as pistachios, a clementine or sunflower seeds. Eat it inside, placing every shell or peel on one plate just outside the entrance so the den floor stays clean.
Why it helps
A quiet snack break in a cosy spot, with nothing to clean up afterwards.
15 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Build up your hearing on one situation today rather than your view, and respond to what you hear with stillness rather than movement.
Why it helps
Trying to see further in a situation that blocks sight gets you nothing. Listening reaches past it, and stillness means what you heard passes you by.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Find where your effort is actually leaking out at the periphery today and close that, rather than adding insulation at the centre.
Why it helps
Adding protection at the centre while heat leaves through the edges means you keep losing it anyway. Closing the peripheral leak is where the gain is.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Route one new kind of information today into the channel you already process best, rather than building a separate way to handle it.
Why it helps
Building a separate way to handle each new kind of information means none of them get attended to. Routing it into your best channel means you actually use it.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Improve your ability to hold one thing in place today instead of improving how forcefully you can act on it.
Why it helps
Increasing how forcefully you act means escalating every time. Being able to hold something still means you never need anything dangerous at all.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Add real weight to one position you hold today: read or gather enough material that you could stand still in a disagreement about it rather than retreating. Then hold the position without moving when it is questioned.
Why it helps
Holding a position you have not done the reading for means you back down the moment it is questioned. Enough weight behind it lets you simply stand there.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Spend today accumulating one asset cheaply, position, information, credit, and make no attempt to convert it until it is clearly enough.
Why it helps
Converting an asset before you have enough of it wastes the whole accumulation. Holding and adding cheaply means the eventual conversion is decisive.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Set one escape up today so it triggers on contact without any decision from you, and remove the step where you currently have to choose to use it.
Why it helps
An escape that needs you to decide to use it fails in exactly the moment you freeze. One that fires on contact works whether you were thinking clearly or not.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
End one arrangement today that has outlived its purpose, deliberately and clearly, rather than letting it continue because it is not causing problems.
Why it helps
Arrangements that have outlived their purpose quietly consume your attention and nobody raises it. Ending one explicitly frees more than you expect.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Use your reach today to close off the ways something can get away rather than to move toward it faster, then take it slowly.
Why it helps
Using your reach to move faster still leaves every exit open for it. Closing the exits means it is already caught before you arrive.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Place one target object in a straight line with five visually similar harmless decoys and photograph the arrangement from several steps away.
Why it helps
Sharpens camouflage-by-confusion thinking: making identification difficult through repeated alternatives rather than physical hiding.
6 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Clip a separate clothes peg to each of three identical cloths, then rub orange or tangerine peel on one cloth only, mark a hidden inside corner of it, wash your hands, and from then on hold each cloth only by its own peg. With a willing friend blindfolded, shuffle the cloths off camera before every round and, without speaking, hold each under their nose in turn until they name the citrus one, revealing the marked corner after each pick; do three rounds.
Why it helps
A fun, surprising test of how strong a scent can be.
10 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Arrange one attractive object so it blends unexpectedly into its surroundings while remaining visible in the frame. Leave it there until someone notices or the Trial ends.
Why it helps
Sharpens visual composition and teaches how presentation can redirect attention without removing the object.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Place a small blue paper mark somewhere in a normal room where it remains visible but blends into surrounding colour or pattern.
Why it helps
You turn quiet wonder into one concrete, visible experience instead of an abstract idea.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Add one conspicuous mark to a simple arrangement so it looks intentional but its purpose is ambiguous. Photograph the finished arrangement from normal viewing distance.
Why it helps
Practises designing a visible cue that can serve more than one possible function without adding clutter.
7 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Choose one small object and position it against a matching background until it becomes difficult to notice at first glance. Keep the final frame wide enough to test the camouflage.
Why it helps
Sharpens visual pattern recognition and composition by making concealment measurable.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Place a small washable object in a bowl and surround it with dry rice, folded cloth or paper until it is hidden, leaving only one attached or adjacent drinking straw visible above the surface.
Why it helps
You turn mud concealment into one concrete experience with a visible finish.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Press a plain pebble, with no face or markings added, into a tray of loose material the same colours as it, such as a brown pebble in soil or leaf litter, until only a small tip shows. A consenting spotter then searches from standing height for thirty seconds without touching, and at the end touches their single best-guess spot before you reveal the pebble.
Why it helps
A small quiet setup that ends in a clear test of how well matching ground makes something vanish.
12 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Place one harmless useful object into an ordinary arrangement so it is present but visually unremarkable. Step back and photograph the whole scene.
Why it helps
You turn internal defense into one concrete experience with a visible finish.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Write a short word in light blue pencil or pen, then cover the whole area in a dense net of red chain-like loops until the word is lost. Hold a red transparent sheet, sweet wrapper or folder over it and watch the word appear.
Why it helps
A calm drawing puzzle that ends in a small magic trick.
12 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Spend ten minutes quietly preparing one task, decision or piece of work without showing the result, then reveal the finished move in one shot.
Why it helps
The work lands finished rather than being discussed into a worse shape while half-built.
10 minDifficulty 1
