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 2,761–2,820.
The Trial
Shut one activity down properly today for the period its supply has stopped, rather than continuing to search within it.
Why it helps
Searching harder in a season that has genuinely stopped burns the reserve you need for when it returns. A real shutdown costs you nothing.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Gather at least five different fresh greens from your kitchen, a shop or your own garden, such as lettuce, rocket, spinach, parsley or mint, and make at least one of them an edible flower (nasturtium, borage or viola), cress or fresh sprouts. Lay a small sample of each beside the bowl and toss the rest together into one salad.
Why it helps
A fresher, more varied meal made from what is in season now.
12 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick one mug, plate, piece of cutlery or ornament with a stamp, hallmark or maker's mark. Look the mark up in a reference book or online and find the maker, country and rough date it indicates; if the mark cannot be traced, pick another marked object.
Why it helps
You find out the true story of one thing you own, sometimes a surprising one.
15 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Move a small token from a 'river' point to a 'sea' point, then return it by a different route. Photograph the two routes together.
Why it helps
Practises planning linked outward-and-return routes instead of treating a journey as a one-way problem.
6 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Place six small clues leading through one room to a hidden object, then have someone follow them in order without skipping ahead.
Why it helps
You turn highland specialization into one concrete, visible experience instead of an abstract idea.
10 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take something you currently do fast and powerfully and today do it by feel instead: slower, hands-on, with the automation or shortcut switched off.
Why it helps
Doing something fast and automatic means you stop noticing what is actually happening in it. One pass by feel usually shows you the problem you could not find.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take the rough ordinary material you already have around one task, old notes, half-ideas or spare parts. Compact it today by going over it repeatedly in one place until it is one solid usable thing.
Why it helps
Waiting for better material means the rough notes and half-ideas you already have stay useless forever. Going over them repeatedly in one place is what turns them into something that holds weight.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Identify your largest running cost today and attach it to something already paying that cost: the existing trip, subscription, meeting or infrastructure.
Why it helps
Your largest running cost is probably one somebody near you is already paying. Attaching to it removes the whole line from your own budget.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take one thing of yours where you present a surface over the workings. Remove the surface today and show the working parts instead, exactly as they are, to at least one person.
Why it helps
Maintaining a surface over how something of yours actually works means you spend effort on the layer and nobody can help with the real thing. Showing the working parts gets you useful corrections instead of compliments.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Kneel motionless holding a large upturned plastic bowl. Over one minute a helper rolls five ping-pong balls past you at unpredictable moments; strike each with one fast lunge that traps it under the bowl, then lift and freeze again. If fewer than three are trapped, you may play a fresh round of five.
Why it helps
A quick, laughing reflex game that trains timing and patience together.
4 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Tape a 20 cm square on a table as your strike zone and rest one hand, holding a plastic cup upside down, beside it. A helper rolls five ping-pong or rubber balls across the table from the far side at different angles and speeds; trap each one under the cup as it crosses the zone.
Why it helps
A fast reflex game that trains patience and precision in the same second.
3 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Prop a book as a gentle ramp onto a table and mark a tape line a hand's width from the bottom. Release marbles down the ramp one at a time with one hand and, with a plastic cup held still in the other, strike to trap each one after it crosses the line and before it leaves the table, five catches within sixty seconds.
Why it helps
A quick reaction game with a genuinely satisfying slap.
3 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Identify one large movement already happening around you this week, a reorganisation, a launch, a deadline, and attach your thing to it today rather than pushing it separately.
Why it helps
Pushing your own thing separately means you supply all the energy and it competes for attention. Attaching it to something already moving gets it carried for free.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Move something forward today by riding a change already happening rather than waiting for clarity, navigating by what you can directly check rather than by the full picture.
Why it helps
Waiting for clarity means the current has passed by the time you move. Going now and checking by touch gets you upstream while it is still rising.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take a task you do the standard way and do it today using an unconventional method that genuinely works better for you, even if it looks wrong: dictate instead of type, stand instead of sit, draw instead of write. Finish the task that way.
Why it helps
Doing it the standard way when the standard way does not suit you is why it keeps taking so long. The method that looks wrong and works is worth more than the one you are supposed to use.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Tie a string loosely between two chair backs about a metre apart and hang a small bell or a spoon-and-keys jangle from its middle. Starting with both hands on one end, move hand over hand to the far end, always keeping one hand gripping before the other lets go, without making the bell sound.
Why it helps
A slow, absorbing exercise in hand control that quietens the mind.
10 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Replace one clock-based trigger today with the actual condition it was standing in for, and let the timing vary accordingly.
Why it helps
A clock trigger is wrong whenever conditions differ from when you set it, and you will not notice. Triggering on the condition corrects itself.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Run lines outward from your position today that only report what crosses them, and stay where you are rather than going out to look.
Why it helps
Going out to look means leaving your position and missing what arrives there. Lines that only report let you stay put and still know everything.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Arrange one thing today so one end sits in each of two very different conditions, taking from each what only it provides, rather than compromising in the middle.
Why it helps
Settling in the middle of two conditions means getting the weak version of both and the advantage of neither. Spanning them gets you what only each end can give.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Name the side effects of one capability you want to use today, and solve at least one of them before using it.
Why it helps
Using a powerful capability before solving what it breaks means it hurts you the first time. Fixing one side effect first is what makes it usable.
1 minDifficulty 5
The Trial
Build or arrange a way today to point one high-gain instrument or attention deliberately, accepting that it covers only one direction at once.
Why it helps
A high-gain instrument you cannot point wastes most of its sensitivity. Building the means to aim it is what makes the gain usable.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Choose a leafy houseplant, draw and colour a paper leaf to match its shape, shade and veins, tear it out and tuck it among the real leaves. Set a fan on low so the plant sways, then look from an arm's length before slowly moving in to find it.
Why it helps
A slow, absorbing bit of drawing and a camouflage trick to show off.
20 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Lean a hardback book against a stack as a ramp on a table and tape three pencils across it as bumps. Release a draughts piece, bottle cap or coin on its edge from the top so it jolts and wobbles down and across the table; you have up to twenty releases to stop it within a finger's width of the edge.
Why it helps
A calm, patient game of tiny adjustments with a satisfying near-miss finish.
15 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Start with an empty glass bottle and blow across its mouth for a deep boom, adding water a little at a time only if that makes the note louder, until you have the loudest deep boom it will give. Then sound eight separate booming calls through it, evenly spaced about two seconds apart.
Why it helps
A fun, noisy lesson in how a hollow space can make a small breath very loud.
10 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Set a leafy houseplant where a gentle fan moves its leaves, cut a paper leaf of the same size and colour and hang it among them on a short thread tied to a stem. Between trials, trim its size, add or remove a paperclip weight and change the thread length until it sways like its neighbours; then, with your hands away, a consenting helper who did not see where it hangs watches from two metres for thirty seconds and points once to the leaf they think is fake, and if they find it you tune again and retry.
Why it helps
A quietly absorbing tinkering puzzle that tunes your eye to movement and fools a friend.
15 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Optimise one thing completely for the setting that matters today and deliberately accept being worse at it in the setting that does not.
Why it helps
Balancing for both settings means you are mediocre in the one that pays you. Optimising completely means looking clumsy somewhere that does not matter.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Fill a shallow tray with potting mix, leaf litter, or coconut coir. For fifteen minutes, push your fingers slowly under the surface along short tunnels, pausing often, as if feeding and growing beneath cover rather than racing to the other side.
Why it helps
You practice slow under-cover work when progress should be gradual, not flashy.
15 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Convert one surplus into a reserve today, on the day it arrived, and define the condition under which it gets drawn back out.
Why it helps
A surplus you leave as surplus gets absorbed into ordinary spending and you never see it again. Converting it the same day with a stated trigger is what makes it a reserve.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Enter one narrow space today with a shape that can reverse inside it, and name the ongoing cost that shape carries.
Why it helps
Entering narrow spaces without being able to reverse means getting stuck in the one that matters. Confirming it first costs you nothing.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Take one thing you left to sit and go through it item by item today, handling each piece rather than checking the whole thing over.
Why it helps
Things you leave sitting do not get attacked, they rot quietly, and by the time you look it is all gone. Handling each piece once prevents that entirely.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Choose one safe palm-sized object. Hold it in one hand and rotate it through four different orientations without setting it down or passing it to the other hand.
Why it helps
Builds hand dexterity, control and flexible manipulation.
4 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Work in one cluttered space today using only turning in place rather than moving forward, and hold position between moves.
Why it helps
Moving forward in a tangle means catching on everything and backing out. Turning in place lets you reach what is around you without any of that.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Walk a short route the way a robin forages: a few steps, a full stop, head turned to bring one ear toward the ground, listening properly. Do it at least four times and say out loud one thing you heard that you would normally have walked past.
Why it helps
You move through your own space on sight alone and miss what it is telling you. Four deliberate stops to listen costs two minutes and routinely turns up something you had been walking past for weeks.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Find one harmless nuisance or scrap from a normal task and convert it into something useful or presentable. Photograph before and after.
Why it helps
A nuisance you would normally throw away turns into something you are mildly proud of.
10 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Inspect exactly five safe movable items or leaf-litter-like layers and find one detail hidden underneath. Photograph the best discovery.
Why it helps
Develops systematic search skill by revealing information unavailable from the surface while keeping the search bounded.
6 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick one blocked route today. Instead of pushing, change your own orientation to it, approach it from the side or in a different form, and get through without widening the gap.
Why it helps
Pushing straight at a blocked route means you spend weeks trying to change something that is not going to move. Changing your own orientation gets you through the same gap today.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Name the worst stretch you are in. Instead of building anything new, move into shelter that already exists today, someone else's system or an arrangement already in place, and reduce your own output deliberately.
Why it helps
Building new shelter during the worst stretch spends exactly what you have least of. Moving into something that already exists and reducing your output is the version you can actually afford.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take one thing you currently have a surplus of, time, money, goodwill, energy, and convert it today into a form that will still be there in a lean month.
Why it helps
Surplus that is only enjoyed leaves you with nothing when the lean month arrives and you will not see it coming. Converting some of it costs you almost nothing now.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take one piece of your own work that nobody knows about and put it somewhere visible today, with your name on it: posted, presented, sent to the group, pinned where people look. No qualifying note.
Why it helps
Work nobody knows about counts for nothing, and staying quiet is a habit rather than modesty. One visible posting with your name on it changes what people bring you for months afterwards.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Next time something irritates you, direct the response at the actual source rather than at whoever is nearest or at the room. Say it once, to the person or place responsible, and nowhere else.
Why it helps
Venting sideways spreads the problem to people who cannot fix it and leaves the source untouched. Aiming it once at the actual source is the only version that changes anything for you.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Pick one fast-moving opportunity that larger, slower operators are also after. Change direction on it today faster than they can, commit within the hour, and do not try to match their scale.
Why it helps
Competing with larger operators on scale means you lose slowly and expensively every time. Turning faster than them is the one advantage being small actually gives you, and it only works if you use it now.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Respond to one sudden development today by intensifying the signal on the path already in use, and issue no new instructions or plan.
Why it helps
Issuing a new plan for every development means everyone stops to read it and your moment passes. Amplifying the signal on the path they are already on moves people immediately.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Use one response today that works without closing the distance, before anything that would require contact.
Why it helps
Any response that needs contact puts you within reach of whatever you are facing. One that works at distance costs you nothing and usually ends it.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Choose the destination before you start moving on one thing today, and let your route be as irregular as it needs to be.
Why it helps
Evading without a destination means you tire out somewhere worse than where you started. Choosing it first makes the irregular route work.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Name one thing you compete at using the most expensive method available - money, hours, intensity, constant maintenance. Today, do one round of it using a permanent cheap advantage instead: something you already own, already know, or already have standing in. Win or place with that, and spend none of the expensive resource.
Why it helps
Competing with your most expensive resource is why you burn out and cannot keep it up. Finding the permanent advantage you already hold lets you keep showing up when others cannot.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Replace one heavy protective layer today with something much finer and lighter that achieves more by structure rather than bulk.
Why it helps
Adding bulk to stay protected costs you weight you then carry everywhere. Something finer achieves more and you stop noticing it is there.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Duplicate something you already have today rather than refining it, and use the redundancy to do something the single copy could not.
Why it helps
Refining one copy of something hits a limit and you keep polishing. Duplicating it gives you redundancy that does things the single copy could not.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Identify one thing you tolerate that others around you cannot, and deliberately take on work today that requires that tolerance.
Why it helps
Skills can be learned by anyone competing with you, but a tolerance cannot. Work that requires yours is uncontested for as long as you want it.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Line up twenty identical opaque cups upside down on a table and hide a paperclip under one of them. Then, without lifting any cup, find it by passing a magnet over each in turn. Work through all twenty in order and only lift the one the magnet identified.
Why it helps
Some hazards you cannot see, smell or taste, and judgement is no protection at all against those. Having one cheap test you actually run is the difference between caution and knowing.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Name one thing you have been going out to get. Instead today, put something genuinely attractive in the place where you already are, and let the thing come to it.
Why it helps
Chasing something means you arrive on its terms, tired and visibly needing it. Putting something worth coming to where you already stand gets you the same encounter from a position of rest.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Find one person in your group who works in a visibly different way and ask them how they do a shared task today, with no suggestion they should do it your way.
Why it helps
Someone working visibly differently reads as doing it wrong, and you quietly discount them. Asking how instead usually gets you a method you would never have reached.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Keep one capability completely out of sight today until a single moment reveals all of it at once, rather than hinting at it beforehand.
Why it helps
Hinting at what you can do spreads it thin and nobody reacts. Keeping it hidden until one complete reveal is what actually changes the situation.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Take one long-standing claim you rely on today and find out whether anyone actually verified it, rather than how often it is repeated.
Why it helps
A claim repeated for decades feels settled and may never have been checked once. Looking for the original verification takes you an afternoon.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Set up two tools or arrangements today specialised in opposite directions for one job, and retire the single compromise version you were using.
Why it helps
One tool that does everything adequately means every job you do is done at a compromise. Two specialised in opposite directions makes both halves of the work easy.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Pick one situation today with risk coming from two directions, write both on a single sheet side by side, and work for fifteen minutes checking both columns at every step rather than handling one then the other.
Why it helps
Handling one threat at a time means the other arrives while you are busy. Holding both in view at once costs you a little speed and removes the blind side.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Agree two distinct signals today for two situations that need opposite responses, then use the correct one and watch the right response follow.
Why it helps
One alarm for everything means people guess which response you wanted and half of them guess wrong. Two distinct signals get the right reaction without any explaining.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Find one crowded pot, tray or seed box with too many plants in it, or a list with too many parallel projects. Pick the single strongest and remove every other one today - pull the seedlings, cancel the items. Then give the survivor everything the others were getting: the water, the light, the hours.
Why it helps
Keeping several weak versions alive is why none of them ever gets strong, and you cannot see which would have worked. Removing the rest today tells you within a week.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Put something on your blind side today that makes an approach from there feel observed, without you having to watch it.
Why it helps
Watching your blind side costs you the attention you need for the actual work. Something that makes it feel observed does that for nothing.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Set a small target - a coin on a table edge, a mark on a wall - and stand back. With one eye closed, reach out and touch it exactly, three times, noting each miss. Then do three more with both eyes open. Afterwards, name the one decision this week where you have been reaching without checking the distance first.
Why it helps
Reaching for things without judging the gap first is why your commitments keep landing short or overshooting. Checking the distance takes seconds and removes most of the corrections you make afterwards.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take a decision you keep gathering information for and write down the only two facts that would actually change what you do. Get just those two, then decide, ignoring everything else available.
Why it helps
Gathering more information feels responsible and is usually how you avoid deciding. Naming the two facts that would actually change your action gets you to a decision the same day.
1 minDifficulty 3
