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 1,381–1,440.
The Trial
Build one personal reserve today for a period you know is coming when nothing will come in: put aside the money, the food, the prepared work, in the quantity the whole gap needs rather than a token amount.
Why it helps
Entering a lean stretch with a token reserve means you make bad decisions halfway through it. One sized to the whole gap lets you spend the time on what matters.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Sit in one warm spot for ten minutes before the thing you have to do, doing nothing but watching the ground you are about to act on. No preparing, no rehearsing, nothing in your hands.
Why it helps
Going straight into something cold means you spend the first half of it catching up. Ten minutes of loading first gives you the whole effort at full strength.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Spend a fixed period today loading rather than producing, gathering everything needed for one task without starting it, then release it all in a single uninterrupted go.
Why it helps
Producing while you are still gathering means constant stopping and your output is capped by your slowest step. Loading fully first and releasing in one go produces more than the same hours spread out.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Go into one contested space today - a shared kitchen, a busy shop, a crowded meeting - and get everything you need in a single pass without stopping to deal with any of it there. Gather, leave, and only then sort, eat, read or decide somewhere quiet and alone.
Why it helps
Standing in a crowded space trying to decide is why simple errands exhaust you and you still forget things. Gathering in one pass and deciding somewhere quiet gives you both speed and a better choice.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Before the window you are waiting for opens, get into the loaded position now: the file open, the message drafted, the kit laid out, the number to hand. Set it and leave it ready.
Why it helps
Starting to prepare when the window opens means it has closed by the time you are ready. Loading the position in advance turns the same opportunity into something you can take in seconds.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Build up the whole effort for one action in advance today, then release it with a single trivial trigger, and put no effort into the moment itself.
Why it helps
Trying to generate the force at the moment means you are slow exactly when speed decides it. Storing it beforehand means the moment costs you nothing but a release.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Put something small and hard inside a sealed container of rice, sand or soil. Stand still and listen as you tilt or tap it until you can say where the object is, then reach in once with a single finger and bring it out. No shaking the container out, no second attempt.
Why it helps
You dig into things before you know where the target is, which costs you time and makes a mess you then have to clear. Locating first and reaching once is faster every time.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Mark four zones on a table, put on a blindfold and headphones playing steady noise, and rest both palms flat on the table. A partner taps one zone firmly five times in random order with the eraser end of a pencil, and after each tap you point to the zone without lifting your other hand.
Why it helps
You discover how much a flat surface tells your hands when you stop moving.
8 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Sit still with your eyes closed for five minutes and identify five separate sounds you would normally miss, naming where each one is coming from. Then act on whichever one turns out to matter.
Why it helps
Searching visually for things you could have heard wastes effort and misses what is underground. Five minutes of listening first tells you where to spend the digging.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Sit still with eyes closed while someone makes three quiet sounds from different safe positions. Point to each source before opening your eyes.
Why it helps
You turn deep listening into one concrete, visible experience instead of an abstract idea.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Find something you are always holding, propping or steadying by hand, then wedge, clip or brace it so it holds itself. Show your hand holding it, then the brace going in, then your hands fully away and the thing still in place.
Why it helps
Anything you hold by hand is a task you repeat forever. Converting it into a brace once means the effort is spent and finished, and nothing is quietly draining you for the rest of the week.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Choose one harmless object that slides or shifts and wedge or secure it using a reversible household method. It must stay put during a gentle shake test.
Why it helps
You learn how a mechanical lock can beat continuous effort.
8 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick one thing you hold in place by continuous small adjustments. Lock it today, fix the setting and remove your ability to fiddle with it, and leave it locked for the rest of the day.
Why it helps
Holding something in place by constant small adjustments costs you attention all day and usually makes it worse. Locking the setting gets you the same position for nothing.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Break one attempt into position and strike today, do the positioning move first, and only then make the move that depends on it.
Why it helps
Making the decisive move from the wrong position means it fails and you cannot repeat it. Naming the positioning step first is usually all that was missing.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Two or more people lie side by side on a rug or lawn, all facing the same way with shoulders touching. Set an interval timer to chime every minute, and at each chime everyone takes one slow, audible breath out together, five chimes in all, lying still in between.
Why it helps
A few minutes of closeness and calm that leaves a group quietly in sync.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Strip the presentation off something of yours that nobody is currently looking at, the formatting, the polish, the performance, and leave it plain. Keep the capability, remove the display.
Why it helps
Maintaining polish on things nobody is looking at costs you hours every week and changes nothing. Stripping it where it is unobserved frees that time and the capability is still there when needed.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
After putting something out that you want a response to, go completely quiet about it for the rest of the day: no following up, no checking in, no mentioning it. Let it sit untouched.
Why it helps
Chasing a response after you have asked is what makes people wary of answering. Going quiet costs you nothing and the reply you get back is the honest one rather than the pressured one.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Make one thing today resemble what the people you want are already looking for, and stop the effort you were putting into drawing attention to it.
Why it helps
Pushing something at people who were not looking for it costs you constant effort for almost nothing. Making it look like what they already want means they come to you.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Identify something you monitor constantly and agree with one other person today that you will alternate, so each of you checks half as often. Set the alternation explicitly.
Why it helps
Monitoring something constantly because nobody else will means you never fully disengage from it. Alternating with one person halves your load and nothing is less covered.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Place one glass of water in the middle of a room or garden and five small bowls of seeds, nuts or raisins around it a few steps away. Take a pinch from one bowl, carry it back to the glass, eat it and sip there, then set off for the next bowl until all five are visited.
Why it helps
A playful snack break that also gets a full glass of water into you.
10 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Tag ten soft or unbreakable items such as socks, cushions or toys with numbered sticky notes, scatter them on the floor of a clear, flat room and mark ten numbered spots on a table at the far end. Walk a continuous loop, each lap dipping to pick up the next item in number order and rising to set it on its matching spot, until all ten are up, without pausing at any point.
Why it helps
A brisk loop of movement and searching that also leaves the floor tidy.
5 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Identify the one place, source or hour today that has actually produced most of your results. Return to it deliberately and work it a second and third time rather than exploring somewhere new.
Why it helps
Moving on to somewhere new after one good result leaves most of the value sitting in the place you just left. Looping the rich patch again is the cheapest return available to you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Set up one arrangement today that produces what you were going out to get, and supply it with what it needs instead of fetching the output yourself.
Why it helps
Going out for something every time you need it ties the supply to your effort and it fails the week you are stretched. Hosting what produces it ends the trips.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Name one thing you are keeping from an old role or identity that is actively stopping the new one, the old title, the old tool, the old habit, and give it up today rather than carrying both.
Why it helps
Carrying the old version alongside the new one is why the new one never quite lands for you. Giving up one genuinely useful thing from before is uncomfortable for a day and settles the question.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take something of yours that is still carrying its original polish. Use it hard today in a real situation, let it lose that finish, and keep using it in the worn state rather than restoring it.
Why it helps
Keeping something of yours in pristine condition means it never reaches the state where it actually works, and you protect it instead of using it. The wear is usually the part that makes it effective.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Make one contribution today that is impossible to miss while you stay out of the room: the written note, the recorded message, the sent work. Do not attend in person.
Why it helps
Being in the room is not what makes your work count, and it costs you hours. Something unmistakable sent from outside it gets you the same credit for far less.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Answer one thing you cannot beat by force today with thirty seconds of unmistakable noise and movement instead: a loud, visible, committed display aimed directly at it. Make it impossible to ignore.
Why it helps
Trying to win on strength against something stronger ends one way. Thirty seconds of noise and movement can drive it off without you ever making contact.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Lie on your front on a yoga mat or thick rug with your forearms stretched ahead and apart. From the side, a helper tugs a rolled sock across the floor in front of you on a string at a moment of their choosing; lunge a short way forward, forearms sliding rather than slamming, and clamp it between your forearms, with three attempts.
Why it helps
A short, explosive reaction game that is hilarious to watch.
3 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
List everything you plan to put real effort into this week. Score each one for density: how much return sits in one place. Cut every item that is thin and spread out, keeping no more than two. Then put one full hour into the densest one today and nothing into the cut list.
Why it helps
Spreading big effort across thin opportunities is how you end a week exhausted with nothing to show. Reserving your heavy effort for the few dense ones means the same energy actually returns something.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Before starting a task today, identify what kind of thing it actually is and pick the matching method rather than your default one. State the match out loud before you begin.
Why it helps
Using your default method on everything means roughly half of what you do takes twice as long as it should. Naming the match before you start is a few seconds that changes the whole task.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Lie on a sofa or bed under a blanket drawn up no higher than your chin, with your nose and mouth fully clear. Within ten minutes, at a moment a helper chooses, they slowly draw a toy across the floor on a string from out of view; track it with your eyes only and say 'stop' as soon as it halts.
Why it helps
Ten warm, still minutes with a small moment of pay-off that sharpens attention.
12 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Maintain the specific thing today that lets you operate inside someone else's protection, rather than assuming your access persists.
Why it helps
Access to someone else's protection quietly lapses when you stop maintaining whatever earned it. Doing the maintenance keeps it indefinitely.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Find something genuinely too far, too wide or too heavy for one person and close the gap with linked people instead of effort: a hand-to-hand chain, a passing line, a human bridge. With everyone's consent, show the gap, the chain forming, and the thing done.
Why it helps
You treat a job that is out of reach as needing more strength, so it stays undone. Linking a few people turns an impossible span into a short reach for each of them.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Reshape something you already have today into the function you are missing, rather than acquiring anything new for it.
Why it helps
Acquiring something for a function you lack takes weeks and money. Reshaping what you have gets you the function the same afternoon.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick something of yours that keeps getting taken, borrowed or volunteered without asking. Instead of guarding it harder, attach the consequence to it so taking it costs the taker something: the booking form, the deposit, the sign-out sheet, the stated return time. Set it up and show it in place.
Why it helps
Guarding something harder costs you attention every day and still fails. Attaching a visible cost to taking it does the work once, and people stop reaching for it without you having to say anything.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Make one complete meal or packed lunch using only food already in your home. No shop trip, no delivery and nothing borrowed from a neighbour. Lay out every ingredient you will use before you start, then make the meal and sit down to eat it.
Why it helps
You stop treating one missing ingredient as a reason to spend money or time. Finding out how much a meal can come from what you already own saves you trips and makes your kitchen feel like enough.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Have someone hide a small object under a loose cloth or a tray of rice while you look away. Tap the surface twice and watch for the shift that gives its position away. The moment you see it, go straight in and take it in one movement.
Why it helps
Committing hard in the wrong place wastes your whole effort. Two cheap probes to find where the thing actually is turn one big push from a gamble into a hit.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Using a towel, blanket, cardboard, or a folded sheet, make a tubular or pouch-like shelter large enough for you to sit or lie inside with the opening closable. Rest inside it for five quiet minutes, then leave it set up for later use.
Why it helps
You create a reliable reset space so the next bout of activity starts from rest.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Gather five harmless objects used by members of the same household and give them one clearly bounded shared shelf or tray.
Why it helps
You turn crevice kinship into one concrete experience with a visible finish.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take a box, a book, a tin or a drawer and build a concealed compartment into it that does not look like one.
Why it helps
You end up with one genuinely safe place for the two or three things you would hate to lose, which almost nobody actually has.
25 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
For one meal, choose at least three different fruits and make the entire meal from them. Arrange or prepare them however you like, but do not add a non-fruit food to the meal.
Why it helps
Turns specialized fruit feeding into one bounded, visible meal rather than an all-day diet rule.
10 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Build one simple paper parachute and adjust it until it falls noticeably slower than the first attempt. Show the first and improved drop in one video.
Why it helps
Teaches rapid prototyping through an obvious physical before-and-after result.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Use only edible leftovers or scraps you already have to make one small snack or side dish. Do not buy an ingredient for it.
Why it helps
You extract value from food that would otherwise be ignored.
12 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Use only folding, spacing or presentation to make one ordinary object appear much larger in a photo. Do not add a second copy.
Why it helps
You learn how presentation can change perceived size without changing the thing itself.
8 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Lay out five dry, long-keeping packets you already have, such as oats, crackers, dried fruit, nuts, seeds or rice cakes, all still in date, with their best-before dates facing up. Assemble the three with the earliest dates into one snack without cooking, set the other two aside unopened, and eat it slowly.
Why it helps
A calm, no-shopping snack that uses up what is already in the cupboard.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Put a few dry objects inside a bottle or container, close it securely, then give one sudden five-second rattle performance. Make the sound with the object, not your voice.
Why it helps
You get a ridiculous miniature performance and a homemade sound object worth replaying.
6 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Make the structural parts of one thing visibly marked today while leaving the working parts unmarked, so nobody destroys the frame.
Why it helps
An entirely invisible structure gets walked through and destroyed by people who meant you no harm. Marking just the frame prevents that without losing the function.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Make one implicit arrangement in your group explicit and visible today: who decides, who is covering, who is on call. Write it where everyone can see rather than telling one person.
Why it helps
Implicit arrangements get remembered differently by everyone, and the friction lands on you at the worst moment. Writing one where the whole group sees it takes two minutes and ends the ambiguity.
2 minDifficulty 2
Amazon Sailfin Catfish · Endurance ClaimThe Trial
Take something of yours that keeps getting damaged in normal use and armour the exact point that fails, rather than trying to avoid the knock: the corner, the cable end, the spine of the book. Show the damage, the armour going on, and it taking a real knock.
Why it helps
Trying to never knock the thing is a plan that fails the first busy day. Armouring the one point that always breaks means the knock stops mattering and you can stop being careful.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Set up one steady repeating pull today that brings things towards you, and stop the individual trips you were making for each of them.
Why it helps
Making a separate trip for each thing you need means the travelling is most of your day. One steady pull gathers them while you get on with something else.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Find the step a group is stuck behind today and do only that step, then let everyone else proceed without you doing their part.
Why it helps
Doing the whole job means competing with everyone and being thanked for none of it. Doing only the blocking step makes you the one they cannot start without.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Instead of chasing the thing you want today, put out one small piece of bait and wait: the open question, the thing left visible, the offer posted. Set it and do not pursue anything for the rest of the attempt.
Why it helps
Chasing costs you energy on every single attempt and most of them miss. One good piece of bait put out and left works while you do other things, and the ones that come to you were already interested.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Take something you wait for someone else to supply and produce a basic version of it yourself today, then proceed without waiting.
Why it helps
Waiting on someone else's supply means your whole schedule is theirs. Making a rough version yourself means you go when you decide to.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Make support you already have audible today: get the people who back you to say so out loud, in writing, or in the room, rather than backing you privately.
Why it helps
People who back you privately may as well not, because nobody deciding about you knows. Getting it said out loud changes how you are treated immediately.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take something you have only a vague feel for, time, money, how often a thing happens, and make it physically visible: tally it on paper, line the objects up, lay out the receipts. Show the vague version, the stacking, and the pattern you can now actually read.
Why it helps
A vague sense of how often something happens is almost always wrong, and you cannot argue with it. Making it physically visible settles it in ten minutes and usually surprises you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take one piece of work you normally do quickly and invisibly. Do it today slowly and in full view of the people it is for, and let them see the whole of the effort rather than only the result.
Why it helps
Doing hard work quickly and out of sight means people price your effort as easy and ask for more of it for nothing. Letting the effort be seen once resets what they think it costs.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Find a return trip or reset you make regularly that currently produces nothing, the walk back, the commute home, the tidy-up, and give it a job today. Do it once with the return loaded.
Why it helps
Half your repeated motions produce nothing because you treat them as recovery. Loading the return leg once gets you a free second output from a trip you were making anyway.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Take an opening you cannot close, the open calendar, the shared door, the public inbox, and add friction at the threshold today: the required form, the stated hours, the extra step.
Why it helps
You cannot close the opening without cutting off the people you actually want, so it stays wide open. Friction at the threshold filters it without closing anything.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
When pressure arrives today, answer it with one visibly costly display of capacity rather than an explanation: five maximum-height jumps, a hard set, something nobody under strain could manage. Do it where the pressure can see it.
Why it helps
Explaining that you can handle pressure invites argument, because talk is cheap and everyone can do it. One visibly costly display settles the question without you saying anything.
1 minDifficulty 5
The Trial
Take one thing you are waiting on and make the waiting cheaper for fifteen minutes: settle somewhere comfortable with nothing else running, so the wait itself asks almost nothing of you, and then keep waiting to the end.
Why it helps
Making waiting expensive is why you give up on things just before they arrive. A wait that costs you almost nothing can be held long enough to actually pay off.
2 minDifficulty 1
