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 1,621–1,680.
The Trial
Pair up today so one of you is deliberately conspicuous while the other arrives from the direction attention has left.
Why it helps
Approaching alone means whatever you want is watching the only direction you can come from. One of you drawing attention opens all the others.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Before becoming the sole supplier for something today, calculate whether your rate covers everyone depending on it, and say the number.
Why it helps
Becoming the only supplier without checking your rate means everyone depending on you runs short at once. One calculation tells you whether to agree.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pool several people's output into one place with one named keeper today, so the others are freed from looking after it.
Why it helps
Everyone looking after their own output means nobody has time to produce more. One named keeper frees all of you to keep going.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Build or borrow one precise handling method today that lets you take a low-value resource one unit at a time quickly, and use it.
Why it helps
Low-value resources are ignored because handling them costs more than they return. A precise fast method makes a whole supply available only to you.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take several small separate things you have been doing individually and combine them into one single pass that handles all of them together: the errands into one trip, the messages into one send, the questions into one conversation.
Why it helps
Four small tasks done separately cost you four setups and four interruptions. Interlocking them into one pass turns an afternoon of fragments into twenty minutes with nothing left over.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
When the window opens today, commit everything to one short effort of under a minute and then stop completely, with no second attempt. Spend the time before it waiting and watching rather than warming up repeatedly.
Why it helps
Spreading a decisive effort across several half-tries means none of them land and you are tired for all of them. One committed burst is the version that works for you.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Build one arrangement today that serves both of your opposite seasonal problems, and name each job it does.
Why it helps
Two separate arrangements for opposite seasons means maintaining both and using each half the year. One that does both halves your upkeep.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Choose one errand loop you repeat in small separate trips. Today, make one deliberate climb instead: do all the gathering, queuing or setting up in a single uphill push at the start, then coast on it - no return trips, no topping up. Run the rest of the day entirely off what that one push gave you.
Why it helps
Breaking a job into many small trips costs you more energy than the job itself, and you never notice because each trip is tiny. One deliberate push at the start buys you a whole coasting day.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Start one thing alone today without building any enclosure around it, and accept that it is visible while it is small.
Why it helps
Building an enclosure before you start means you need help and never begin. Going without it means you can start alone and people will see it.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Find the thing you keep correcting after it happens and fix it one level earlier instead, at the template, the default, the setting, the first step. Make that single upstream change so the correction stops being needed.
Why it helps
Correcting the same mistake downstream forever is work that never ends for you. One change at the template or default removes every future instance for the cost of doing it once.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Do one fifteen-minute block today on the hardest version of a task, going deeper than you normally would rather than doing three shallow passes at it. Surface for two minutes afterwards, then stop.
Why it helps
Three shallow passes at a hard problem leave you knowing it is hard and nothing else. One deep fifteen minutes gets you to the part that actually resists.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Reduce to one thing today and stay with it the whole way, instead of spreading across several and leaving each to its own chances.
Why it helps
Spreading across several things and leaving each to its chances means most of them fail quietly on you. One attended properly is worth more than all of them.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
After your next useful conversation, write down what you got from it somewhere you will actually look again, with the person, the date and the specific thing. Then use it a second time this week on something unrelated to why it came up.
Why it helps
Most of what you learn in a conversation evaporates within a day, so you ask the same questions again. Storing it properly means one good exchange keeps paying out for months.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Agree one strict handover with another person today over something that cannot be left. Take your full shift without checking on them, hand it back at the agreed moment, and do not stay past it.
Why it helps
Hovering through someone else's shift means neither of you ever gets a real break and both of you stay tired. A clean full shift each way is the only version that actually rests anyone.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Put on something conspicuous today for one specific occasion that can repay it, and deliberately remove it immediately afterwards rather than carrying it on.
Why it helps
Carrying a conspicuous thing outside the moment it earns anything costs you credibility for no return. Wearing it for the occasion and dropping it keeps the upside.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take one person you keep sending bundles of things to. Today send them exactly one thing, complete and finished, and send nothing else to them for the rest of the day.
Why it helps
Sending someone several things at once means they action none of them and you chase all of them. One complete thing per trip gets acted on, and they stop dreading what you send.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Walk one familiar route - a corridor, a garden path, a stairwell - with your eyes closed and one hand trailing along the wall or rail the whole way. Do it three times. Then say three things about that route you did not know before you touched it.
Why it helps
Moving through familiar places on autopilot means you know almost nothing about them when the lights go out. One trailing hand gives you a map you keep for good.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take something you are currently doing as a blend of two approaches and commit fully to one of them today, dropping the other entirely.
Why it helps
A blend of two approaches gets you the credibility of neither, and you cannot see that from inside it. Committing fully to one works immediately.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Instead of raising your own volume on something today, time it to overlap with others saying the same thing, so several voices land in the same window.
Why it helps
Raising your own volume hits a ceiling fast and starts to count against you. Overlapping with others carries much further and costs you nothing extra.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take one situation today that needs both firmness and give. Decide in advance which part is the hard edge and which is the soft grip, then handle it using both rather than choosing one.
Why it helps
Going into something either entirely firm or entirely accommodating means you lose on whichever part needed the other. Deciding both halves beforehand lets you hold the line and still have somewhere to flex.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Build or arrange one provision today that covers two opposite difficult conditions rather than solving each separately: the same buffer, fund, slot or space for both.
Why it helps
Solving each hard condition separately means two sets of upkeep and you maintain neither. One provision that covers both is half the work and always ready.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Pick one person you need to find or coordinate with in a building or outdoor space. Without messaging them any location, agree one distinctive sound each of you will make - a whistle, a word, a clap - and find each other using only that. No texts, no names called out.
Why it helps
You coordinate by sending plans, which go stale the moment anyone moves. A simple signal that says only where you are works when the plan has already fallen apart on you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take one position you keep thinking of leaving and widen what it can feed on instead: add a second use, client, source or output to it today, and stay.
Why it helps
You consider leaving positions that only feel precarious because they rest on one source. Adding a second one makes the same position somewhere you can stay for years.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Commit fully to one medium today and give up the alternative while you do it: do the whole task by hand, or entirely by phone, or entirely in person, and accept being worse at everything else for that hour.
Why it helps
Keeping every option open means you are mediocre in all of them and never find out what full commitment buys. One hour inside a single medium shows you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Consolidate one scattered store into a single place today and commit to defending it, accepting that you can no longer be absent.
Why it helps
A scattered store loses a share to attrition you never see. One consolidated place keeps all of it and ties you to being there.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Execute one rehearsed sequence with another person today exactly as practised, improvising nothing and correcting nothing mid-sequence.
Why it helps
Improvising in the moment that counts means your partner cannot follow you and the whole thing falls apart. Executing exactly what you rehearsed is what makes it land.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Make one thing you already do today also accomplish a second job, and cancel the separate activity you were doing for that second job.
Why it helps
Adding a separate activity for every separate purpose fills your day until none of them get done properly. Making one motion cover two cancels a whole commitment.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Bring every scattered store of one kind you own into a single place today, money, files or supplies, and put one real protection on that place.
Why it helps
Several scattered stores mean you cannot defend any of them properly and you lose a bit from each without noticing. One store with one real protection is the only version you can actually keep.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Build something real using only scraps already lying around you, with nothing bought and nothing fetched from another room. Show the scraps first, then the finished thing actually holding or carrying something, and say what it does now.
Why it helps
Waiting for resources is usually just waiting. Starting with what is already within your reach proves the thing can exist, and that proof is what makes the budget and the help show up.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Pick one room and cross it with your eyes shut, using only one narrow sound cue you set up first - a ticking clock, a running tap, a phone alarm in one corner. Walk to that sound and nothing else, three times, ignoring every other noise in the room.
Why it helps
In a noisy situation you try to take in everything and end up paralysed. Choosing one narrow signal and following only that gets you across ground you could not otherwise read.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Make the narrowest possible opening into one closed thing today, do what you came for through it, and seal it behind you before you leave.
Why it helps
Opening something wider than you needed leaves a way in for everything else and you cannot close it again. The narrowest opening, sealed after, leaves no trace to manage.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take something you keep only one copy of, keys, a spare, a password, a charger, and split it into separate places, one per spot, saying each location aloud as you go. At least three places. Then show yourself finding one from memory.
Why it helps
Keeping one copy in one place means a single loss takes everything. Splitting it across several spots costs you one minute now and removes the single point of failure entirely.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Next time you need to meet or find someone, settle explicitly who moves and who holds position before either of you starts. Say it out loud, then do only your half.
Why it helps
Two people both adjusting to find each other is how twenty minutes of your day disappears. Agreeing who moves takes one sentence and the problem is solved once instead of twice.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take one task you normally attack in bursts and do twenty unbroken minutes of it at a single deliberate pace with a visible timer running, never speeding up and never stopping. If you feel a surge coming, slow instead.
Why it helps
Bursts followed by collapse mean you pay full price for every restart and finish less than someone slower. A single held pace gets you further on the same energy.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Nominate one fixed place today where everyone involved leaves their record, and put your own entry there rather than reporting to each person.
Why it helps
Reporting separately to each person costs you the same message several times and they still disagree. One shared place means you write it once.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Choose one position today, a place, a meeting, a channel, from which you can reach several different opportunities at once, and commit your time there openly.
Why it helps
A position that reaches one opportunity makes you cautious and quiet. One that reaches three lets you be obvious about what you want, because losing any single one costs nothing.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Specify not just what you need today but the exact state it has to be in, and reject anything that is the right thing in the wrong state.
Why it helps
Asking for the right thing without specifying its state is why what arrives is unusable to you. One extra sentence saves your whole round trip.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take one blocked thing you have been pushing at from many angles. Pick a single point of entry and commit to it for twenty-five unbroken minutes: same angle, steady pressure, no switching, no looking for a better way in. Set a visible timer and do not stop before it ends.
Why it helps
Trying a blocked problem from a new angle every few minutes feels like effort but builds no pressure anywhere. Twenty-five minutes of steady push at one point gets you through what hours of switching never did.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Find the specific step in one defence today where a single interception neutralises it, and apply that rather than fighting the whole system.
Why it helps
Fighting a whole defence system means losing to something designed to stop you. Finding the one step to intercept neutralises all of it at once.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Take something you have been founding carefully and get it to its first working state today at low quality, rather than continuing to build it properly before anyone sees it.
Why it helps
Building it properly before it works means you spend the whole founding phase exposed with nothing to show. Getting it working badly ends that phase and everything after is easier.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Find the hardest thing in your kitchen you have been avoiding opening - a stubborn jar, a tough squash, a nut, a sealed box. Take ten minutes to work out the one point where force actually applies, find or improvise the one tool that delivers it, and open the thing. No general wrestling with it.
Why it helps
Attacking hard things with general effort is why you give up or break them. Finding the single point where force applies turns the same strength into something that actually opens doors for you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Choose one place today where at least three of your needs are met at once, and stop the separate arrangements you had for each of them.
Why it helps
Solving each of your needs in a different place means most of your day is travel between them. One place that covers several gives you back the time without any sacrifice.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Split one store today into several separate places so small that losing any single one would not matter, and record where they are.
Why it helps
Keeping everything in one place means a single bad event takes all of it, and those events happen. Splitting it so no loss matters costs you only the bookkeeping.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Send one signal today designed to be read correctly by three different audiences at once, and name what each takes from it.
Why it helps
Sending separate signals to three audiences costs you three messages and they diverge. One designed for all three says the same thing to everyone.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Get one thing through a tight constraint today by making one part of your approach deliberately soft: keep the structure firm and let a single element flex, rather than loosening everything.
Why it helps
Loosening everything to fit through something means you lose the structure that made it worth doing. One deliberate soft element gets you through with the rest intact.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Name the passive protection you rely on in one situation. Decide today on one active response you will actually use if that protection is breached, and state it to the person who would be on the other side.
Why it helps
Relying only on passive protection means that when it is breached you improvise badly and lose ground. One active response decided in advance, and said out loud, usually stops the breach happening.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Build something today purely by repeated single trips, accepting that no trip carries more than one unit and not trying to batch it.
Why it helps
Waiting to batch something that cannot be batched means it never starts for you. Single trips feel slow and the structure actually appears.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
List four problems you are handling separately and find the single change that addresses at least three today. Make that one change rather than the four.
Why it helps
Four separate solutions means four things for you to maintain and none of them finished. One change covering three is less work and far more likely to survive a busy week.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Set three identical cups in a line on the floor, a metre apart. Take one long object you already own - a broom, a towel, a belt. From a fixed standing spot you do not leave, knock all three over with a single continuous swing. Reset and repeat until one swing takes all three.
Why it helps
Handling things one at a time feels careful but costs you most of your day. Finding the single move that clears several problems at once gives you back hours you were spending on repetition.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Set up one dedicated direct line today for the one situation that must get an instant response, bypassing every normal channel.
Why it helps
Routing the one urgent thing through your normal channels is why it arrives too late. A dedicated line costs an afternoon and works every time after.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Take something you do once in a while and run it many times in quick succession today instead: ten in a row, back to back, identical. Then put the whole run somewhere it is seen as one thing rather than ten.
Why it helps
One of anything disappears without trace. Ten done back to back and presented together reads as a body of work, and your tenth is always better than your first.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Pick one source today and defend it rather than moving between several, actively turning away one thing that would have depleted it.
Why it helps
Moving between sources means you arrive after each has been stripped and never have one that lasts. Defending a single one makes it hold for the whole season.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Compress your exposure on one task today into a single loading trip, and do all the consuming or processing somewhere safe afterwards.
Why it helps
Feeding where you gathered means being exposed for the whole session. One loading trip and processing elsewhere cuts your exposure to minutes.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Plan one journey today that you will make exactly once - the shop, the office, the errand run - and make it cover everything. Write the full list before you leave, go, complete all of it, and come back. No second trip for anything missed, whatever it is.
Why it helps
Splitting errands across the day costs you far more than the errands themselves, and you never count that. One committed journey with a full list written first gives you most of an afternoon back.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick a dull surface in your home - a shelf, a wall, a table - and add one vivid colour to it in under three minutes: a cloth, a fruit, a flower, a painted card. Set a visible timer, place it, and leave the room without adjusting it. Come back in an hour and see whether it still works.
Why it helps
Waiting until you have time to do a room properly is why it has looked the same for years. Three minutes and one vivid thing changes how a space feels more than a weekend would.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Move several separate things into one shared structure today, keeping each one distinct inside it, and retire the separate arrangements they used to live in.
Why it helps
Maintaining every separate thing on its own means the upkeep grows faster than you do. One shared structure with distinct places inside it drops that cost immediately.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Next time you are doing something with others today, take the watching role instead of the doing role. Keep track of what the group is missing while they work, and tell them what you saw at the end.
Why it helps
When everyone has their head down in the work, nobody sees what is coming and your group pays for it later. Taking the watching role once gives them the attention they cannot spare themselves.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Range wide over one area today and then dig one thing out properly: skim everything available for ten minutes, pick the single most promising item, and spend the rest of the time on it alone.
Why it helps
Skimming everything and committing to nothing means you end the day informed and empty-handed. One wide pass and then one deep dig gives you something real.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take one group thing that keeps happening in dribs and drabs - a meeting, a move, a clear-out, a family visit. Set one time, tell everyone it is that time only, and get at least three people there together rather than in sequence. Do the whole thing in that one window and nothing afterwards.
Why it helps
Letting a group thing happen in a trickle means you run it five times and it is worse each time. Getting everyone into one window costs you one conversation and saves four repetitions.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Produce one signal today that only your established partnership could produce correctly, so it proves the partnership as well as the claim.
Why it helps
A claim you make alone is tested, and so is the relationship behind it. One joint signal that only you two could produce settles both at once.
2 minDifficulty 2
