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 2.641–2.700.
The Trial
Line up three or four containers, boxes or bags by size, each holding something, with one new bigger one at the front. On a count of three everyone moves their contents up one place at the same time. Show the empty one left at the back.
Why it helps
You treat an upgrade as something you win alone. Moving as a chain means one opening lifts everybody a step, and holding your position is what strands the people behind you.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Think of the place you retreat to when you are depleted. Write down the exact conditions it has to meet to work, then check your real one against that list today and fix the one that is failing.
Why it helps
Assuming rest will work wherever you happen to be means you come out of it as tired as you went in and conclude that rest does not help you. Naming the specifications makes it actually restore you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Run one full ordinary cycle today, including the resting and tidying parts you usually skip, and treat it as the work rather than the gap before it.
Why it helps
Skipping the unglamorous parts of your cycle means arriving at the moments that matter underfed and unprepared. Running the whole thing is what makes those moments winnable.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Identify one consistent rhythm in how you work, when you send things, how often you check in, the cadence of your updates, and make it deliberate today: state it to someone and then hold it.
Why it helps
People cannot tell what to expect from you because your cadence is random, so they chase. A stated rhythm held once or twice means they stop chasing and start relying on it.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Identify which location rather than which resource is the productive asset in your situation today, and secure the location.
Why it helps
Competing for the resource means competing with everyone who wants it. Holding the location that makes the resource usable gives you it by default.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Identify the unremarkable habit of yours that actually gives you access somewhere others cannot go, and use it deliberately today.
Why it helps
Your impressive capability is not what gets you in anywhere; the dull habit usually is, and you have never noticed it. Naming it lets you use it on purpose.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take one piece of knowledge that exists only in experienced people today and get it out of them into a form that survives their departure.
Why it helps
Knowledge living only in experienced heads leaves when they do and you cannot reconstruct it. Getting one piece out costs you an hour and is permanent.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Choose one prepared place today, do the thing there, and go back to the same place a second time rather than doing it somewhere convenient.
Why it helps
Performing wherever you happen to be means nobody learns where to find you and the effort scatters. One prepared place returned to twice makes you locatable.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Let one non-negotiable endpoint dictate the shape of today, planning backwards from it rather than fitting it in at the end.
Why it helps
Fitting the non-negotiable thing in at the end means you reach it late or not at all. Planning backwards from it means the rest still fits.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Hold one fixed place today and serve returning people from it rather than new ones, so your reliability is what they are buying.
Why it helps
Serving new people each time means nobody can tell whether you are reliable and you are judged on the pitch. Returning clients buy the reliability itself.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Apply the waiting discipline you use for decisive moments to one routine journey today, going only when conditions carry you.
Why it helps
Waiting carefully for decisive moments and then forcing every routine journey wastes most of your energy. The same discipline applied to travel is free distance.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Make one quiet evening work spot today in a place you normally only use in the day, set it up properly, and do twenty minutes of real work there after everyone else has stopped.
Why it helps
Competing for the same desk at the same hour means you get the worst of both. Working the same place when it is empty gives you the resource without the contest.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Enlarge one group today rather than trying to reduce the pressure inside it, and check that the load is now spread.
Why it helps
Trying to reduce the pressure in a small group never works and it keeps landing on the same person, often you. Enlarging it spreads the same total thinly.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Make a genuine second pass over one thing today, treating it as where the value arrives rather than as optional polish.
Why it helps
Skipping the second pass means most of the value stays in the material and you never see it. Treating it as essential is where your return actually comes from.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Cook something simple, taking in the chop, the pan and the steam as you go. Plate it twice. Hand the second plate to someone and catch their face on the first bite.
Why it helps
What you make alone stays small. Cooking for two is the habit that turns your own output into other people's, and that is how you end up inside a circle that feeds you back.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Keep one partnership and one patch of ground through a quiet period today rather than letting either lapse, and name what that saves next time.
Why it helps
Letting a partnership or a patch lapse through the quiet months means you pay full setup cost again. Maintaining both is almost free and the next round is easy.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Before preparing anything today, establish whether the thing you are approaching can actually detect your approach, and only invest in discretion if it can.
Why it helps
Paying for discretion against something that cannot notice you is wasted work. Checking first tells you whether to spend anything on it at all.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Set something you need across the room on a loose cloth or sheet of paper. Wait out of reach with a hand touching the cloth's edge. The moment it shifts, dash across, grab the thing and bring it back to where you were waiting. Repeat until you can do it in under five seconds.
Why it helps
You either react late or hover anxiously, and both cost you. Setting up something that buys you a couple of seconds' warning lets you wait calmly and still arrive first.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Build the thing that keeps one arrangement in place into the arrangement itself today, and stop the effort you were spending to hold it there.
Why it helps
Spending effort every day to keep something in place means it slips the week you are busy. Building the support into it means it holds itself while you are elsewhere.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Take a problem you have been thinking of solving by a big move and solve it instead by dropping one level: a lower shelf, the floor, downstairs, a smaller room, an earlier hour. Show the original spot, the small move, and the thing now working.
Why it helps
You scope the fix as a big disruptive move, so it never happens. A one-level change is cheap enough that you will actually do it today, and it usually clears the problem anyway.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Scatter something small across a tray of shallow water or dry rice. Sweep a spoon side to side at a steady rhythm with your eyes up and off the tray, never once aiming at a piece. Stop at thirty sweeps and show the haul.
Why it helps
Staring at one corner waiting for insight finds nothing. Broad undirected coverage turns up what targeted looking misses, and it still works when you have no idea where to aim.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Look at the one thing that makes you most visible in your field and check who it is currently attracting. If it is bringing the wrong attention, narrow where it is displayed today rather than changing the thing itself.
Why it helps
The thing that gets you noticed does not choose who notices. Narrowing where it shows keeps the advantage and removes the attention you did not want.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Name one thing you have decided you cannot do without ever actually trying it. Attempt it once today at the smallest honest scale, and state the outcome plainly whichever way it goes.
Why it helps
Deciding you cannot do something without testing it quietly shrinks what you attempt for years. One honest attempt either gives you the ability back or settles the question for good.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick one simple detectable cue today that will trigger maintenance on something you built, and set it up so the cue reaches you automatically.
Why it helps
Things you built decay silently because you only inspect them when something goes wrong. One automatic cue means you are told before it matters.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Pass something through unchanged today to somewhere it is needed, and name the value of the passing rather than of the taking.
Why it helps
Measuring only what you extract means missing the part of your work that matters most to everyone else. Naming the passage is what makes it count.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Identify the single element a response is actually keyed to today, test it alone, and stop maintaining the rest of the presentation.
Why it helps
Maintaining a whole presentation when one element carries the response wastes most of your effort. Testing it alone tells you what to stop doing.
1 minDifficulty 4
The Trial
Choose one spot today, hold it for hours without acting, then commit your whole effort in a single movement when something arrives.
Why it helps
Partial commitments from a half-held position miss and warn whatever you wanted. Holding one spot and committing entirely lands it.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Take something you keep running out of and replace the stockpile with a source that regenerates: a sourdough starter, cuttings in water, a repeating order, a template that makes the next one. Show the empty tin, the source set up, and the first thing it produced.
Why it helps
Stockpiles run down and then you are rationing. A source that regenerates means you stop thinking about the supply at all, and it keeps producing when you are too busy to restock.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Accept today that one defence of yours has to be behavioural because the structure does not exist yet, and practise the behaviour deliberately.
Why it helps
Expecting a structural defence you have not built yet means being caught without one. Practising the behaviour deliberately covers you until it exists.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Check today whether something not happening is a missing signal or an unresponsive receiver, and fix whichever it actually is.
Why it helps
Sending the signal harder when nothing is listening achieves nothing and you will keep doing it. One check tells you which end is broken.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Put one thing in motion today and let the movement carry the signal rather than describing it, adding nothing static to explain it.
Why it helps
Describing what something does means people have to take your word and they do not. Putting it in motion in front of them settles it without a word from you.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Anchor yourself today with something you are not using for the work so both hands are free, and attempt nothing while unanchored.
Why it helps
Working on unstable ground with one hand holding on means doing half a job and still feeling unsafe. Anchoring with something else gives you both hands and the nerve.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
List what you currently present about yourself and what actually produces your results. Name the one impressive item that does no work today, and spend the hour you would have spent on it on the thing that does.
Why it helps
The impressive part of what you present is often the part doing none of the work, and you keep maintaining it anyway. Naming it honestly frees an hour for whatever actually produces your results.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Pick one thing of yours that launches well and lands badly. Build the stopping mechanism today, a named end point or a hard cutoff, and use it to end the thing cleanly once.
Why it helps
Getting good at starting things while having no way to stop them means every one of them ends by crashing or by exhausting you. A built brake turns the same launch into something that finishes.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Set one thing up today so its working part can act without the rest of you being involved, and stay out of the operation entirely once it starts.
Why it helps
If your whole attention has to be committed for anything to happen, you can only ever do one thing. A working part that acts on its own frees the rest of you.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Hold back one highest-effort response today until nothing cheaper remains, then use all of it at once rather than easing into it.
Why it helps
Using your hardest response on ordinary problems means it is unavailable and unconvincing when something real arrives. Keeping it back makes it work the one time you need it.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Instead of learning a capability you need today, bring in something or someone that already has it and integrate it properly: the library, the service, the collaborator.
Why it helps
Learning every capability yourself means everything waits months for you to be competent. Housing one that already works gets it today and you keep your time for what only you can do.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Add decay to one route or habit today so it fades unless it keeps being reinforced by success, rather than persisting by default.
Why it helps
Routes that persist by default keep taking you to sources that dried up months ago. Building decay in means they remove themselves without your attention.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Set up one route or process today so that each person using it also repairs it slightly, and remove the separate maintenance pass you were doing.
Why it helps
A route that needs a separate maintenance pass degrades in the weeks you skip it, and you will skip it. One repaired by its own traffic never has a bad week.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Send one signal today as a group rather than individually, so that the number of people behind it is part of what is heard.
Why it helps
Sending something alone means the response depends on your own weight. A collective signal carries the number with it and usually settles things unopposed.
2 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Separate your setup from your output for one task: spend a fixed short block only building the structure, the folder, the template, the space, producing nothing usable. Then stop, and in a separate block put real content into it.
Why it helps
Mixing setup and output means the setup never finishes and the output never starts. Separating them cleanly gets you a structure in twenty minutes and then real work into it, instead of an afternoon of neither.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
At full speed today perform only one move you have already practised slowly in the same place, and attempt nothing you have not rehearsed there.
Why it helps
Trying something new at full speed means failing at the moment it mattered and blaming the speed. Only doing what you practised slowly in that place is why it works.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Show the real pile: twelve open tabs, nine newsletters, a stack of recipes. Say the number out loud. Then close, bin or unsubscribe from everything except two, one satisfying click at a time. Finish with the two survivors.
Why it helps
Keeping every option open is what drains you. Cutting to two stops you paying attention tax on the other ten, and the two you keep actually get finished.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Perform one thing today that genuinely cannot be done alone, with each person holding a distinct part, and do not cover for the other if they falter.
Why it helps
Assuming a partnership still works because nothing has gone wrong means finding out during something that mattered. Something neither of you can do alone tests it cheaply.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Keep one real skill out of sight today while letting something harmless and obvious stand in for it, then reveal the real one only at the point where it actually changes the outcome.
Why it helps
Showing your strongest capability early means it gets priced in and argued down before it matters. Holding it back until the deciding moment is worth far more to you.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Keep the visible parts of one thing static today while the actual mechanism of progress stays out of view.
Why it helps
Visible progress invites interference from anyone with an opinion about it. Keeping the mechanism out of view means you arrive before anyone reacts.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Say out loud the thing you have outstayed: the seat, the route, the room. Then walk out of it and go all the way to somewhere better, finishing set up and actually working. No stopping partway.
Why it helps
Loyalty to somewhere that is drying up is just a slower loss. Leaving while you still have the energy for the crossing is what keeps the next place reachable at all.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Make sure one warning you give today is placed exactly where the consequence actually lands: on the document, at the step, in the moment, not in a general notice elsewhere.
Why it helps
A warning you give away from the moment it matters is forgotten before anyone reaches it. Putting yours at the exact point means it works the first time.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Act on one agreed signal today the instant it comes, without checking whether it was warranted, and do the checking only after you are safe.
Why it helps
Checking whether a warning was justified uses the time the warning was giving you. Moving first and checking later costs you a few wasted trips and nothing worse.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Take one transition you have been staging gradually and make it today as a single committed move for everyone involved, with no assistance arranged.
Why it helps
Staging a transition gradually means you live in both states at once and it costs you more than either. Everyone going at once is over in a day.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Name one place or arrangement you keep returning to out of habit. Check what condition you actually need from it today, find where that condition currently is, and go there instead.
Why it helps
Returning to the place that used to work means you keep paying for an address rather than the thing you went there for. Naming the condition tells you where it is now, which is usually somewhere else.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Name one thing you are about to start that you have been assuming you can resource as you go. Put the resource in place today, in full, before taking the first step of it.
Why it helps
Starting something you plan to resource along the way means you run out in the middle, where stopping costs most. Putting the whole amount in first tells you now whether it is even possible.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Trace one thing you depend on back to its actual source today, and if it turns out to be a single place, write down what you would do if it stopped.
Why it helps
You depend on things whose origin you have never checked, and single sourcing is invisible until it stops. One trace tells you whether you have a problem waiting.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Do one thing today in a single pass inside a window you identified in advance, with every preparation finished before the window opens.
Why it helps
Arriving at a narrow window still preparing means it closes while you are getting ready. Finishing everything beforehand turns the window into one pass you can actually make.
1 minDifficulty 3
The Trial
Identify what actually sets the window for one thing today rather than what is conventionally used to time it, and plan against the real one.
Why it helps
Timing by the conventional variable means missing a window set by something else. Identifying the real controller is what makes your timing work.
2 minDifficulty 1
The Trial
Let one by-product of your normal movement do your signalling today, so you make no separate announcement at all.
Why it helps
Separate announcements cost you time and get read as self-promotion. A by-product of your movement signals the same thing and nobody minds.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Name one thing you can already do that the people around you have never seen, and use it visibly once today in the normal course of work. Do not explain it or build up to it.
Why it helps
Capabilities nobody has seen might as well not exist, and announcing them sounds like boasting. Using one visibly in the normal run of work shows it without you having to claim anything.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Keep the visible part of one thing completely still today while doing the actual work out of sight, and let nobody see the effort.
Why it helps
Visible effort invites comment and interference on everything you do. Keeping the surface still means you work undisturbed and only the result shows.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Set one line under tension today with a deliberately weak anchor, so that something triggering it does the lifting itself.
Why it helps
Doing the lifting yourself means being present at the moment it happens. Stored tension with a weak anchor means the thing lifts itself while you wait.
2 minDifficulty 2
The Trial
Find the oddest object within reach that is not designed for the job in front of you - a shoe as a hammer, a card as a scraper, a jar lid as a funnel. Use it to actually complete the task, and do not substitute the proper tool even if you have one. Then name what the odd thing was good at that you had not noticed.
Why it helps
Waiting for the right tool is why half your jobs sit unfinished for weeks. Finding out what the wrong object is actually good at makes you much harder to stall.
2 minDifficulty 2
