Three quick, timed exercises that stretch how you think: unusual uses for an everyday object, ten words that have nothing to do with each other, and the puzzle where the missing word is on the tip of your tongue. Do them back to back in about five minutes — and watch your scores change as you get the hang of it.
You'll need a free account — that's how your scores and streaks are kept.
Same three exercises every day, with new prompts each morning. Together they cover both halves of creative thinking: coming up with lots of ideas, and then spotting the connection that makes one of them work.
One everyday object — a brick, a sock, a paperclip — and three minutes to think of as many odd uses for it as you can. It's the classic way to measure "thinking sideways", and it gets easier the more you do it.
Trains: generating ideas, quickly.
Name ten nouns that have as little to do with each other as possible. The further apart your words sit, the higher you score. It's a fast way to see how far your mind is willing to wander today.
Trains: making unexpected connections.
Three words are shown — say, cottage, swiss, cake — and one word links them all. That "oh, obviously!" moment is what you're training. 144 puzzles, sorted from gentle to genuinely hard.
Trains: spotting hidden links.
Staring at a blank page is the hardest way to start. These warm-ups get your head into the right state first — a couple of minutes recalling a real memory, a few minutes of calm attention, and a fresh angle on the problem in front of you.
A gentle hubbub of background noise helps a lot of people come up with more ideas — busier than silence, quieter than a loud room. That's roughly the level of a coffee shop, and the bar at the top of every page makes that sound for you right in your browser. Nothing is downloaded, and there's a slider if you'd rather have rain, or nothing at all.
Try it now — it starts when you pick a sound and works on any page.
Nine short activities, what they're good for, and how you do them here.
| Activity | What it's good for | How you do it here |
|---|---|---|
| Unusual uses | Getting lots of ideas out fast, and getting past the obvious answer. | Three minutes, one object, with a live idea count. |
| Ten unrelated words | Stretching how far your mind reaches when you need something new. | Ten words, scored instantly on how far apart they are. |
| The missing word | Noticing links you didn't know you knew — the "aha!" feeling. | A puzzle a day, plus 144 to work through by difficulty. |
| Remembering something real | Getting more detail into your thinking before you start. | A two-minute memory warm-up before you ideate. |
| Changing your perspective | Seeing your problem in a bigger, less fussy way. | Look at it from ten years out, or from someone else's seat. |
| Limits and "what if…" | Breaking out of a rut when you're stuck on the same few options. | Constraint cards and what-if prompts. |
| A café-level hum | Helping new ideas surface when a silent room isn't working. | The sound bar at the top of every page. |
| Calm attention | Switching between open, floaty thinking and sharp focus. | Two five-minute timers — one for each mode. |
| Going for a walk | Loosening up your thinking when you're stuck at a desk. | Walk & Talk: one prompt, ten minutes, notes on your return. |
These drills measure how you're doing on that one task today — nothing more. They're not an IQ test and they won't turn you into a genius. What they give you is a short, repeatable way to practise two skills that pay off everywhere: producing plenty of ideas, and noticing which one is worth keeping.