A 30-day outdoor challenge: one small thing a day

Three rules

One: the thing has to happen outside your front door, not through a window. Two: decide the day's task in the morning, not when you've got your coat on. Three: a day counts when you've done the task, not when you've done it well. A bad photo of a red door is still a red door.

Days 1 to 7: just get out

1. Day 1: Five hundred steps To the corner and back, if that's all there is. The first ones are the hard part.
2. Day 2: Three minutes on the doorstep Stand outside your own door for three minutes before going anywhere. Don't check anything. Look at the street you live on.
3. Day 3: Be outside between six and eight in the evening Any part of that window, for any length of time. After eight it usually doesn't happen.
4. Day 4: Walk to the nearest mailbox and back No letter required. Choose the mailbox farther away if there are two.
5. Day 5: Both ends of your street Walk your own street to both of its ends. You use the middle; the ends belong to other people.
6. Day 6: Photograph something that's mostly red A door, a car, a sign. Fill most of the frame with it.
7. Day 7: Ten minutes at half speed Walk for ten minutes at half your usual pace. It feels ridiculous for three minutes and then like a vacation.

Days 8 to 14: look harder

1. Day 8: Count the chimneys Look along the roofline of your street and count the chimneys. Then work out how many of them are still in use.
2. Day 9: Look above the first floor Deliberately look up, several times, on a street you know. Above the first floor hardly anyone knows their own town.
3. Day 10: The back of a sign Photograph the plain gray back of a road sign or street sign. Nobody looks at it.
4. Day 11: Three surfaces On the way somewhere, put a hand on three different materials: brick, bark, cold metal. Notice which one has kept the weather.
5. Day 12: Moss on one side only Find a trunk, post or wall where moss grows on just one side. Walk around it once to be sure.
6. Day 13: Where the repaint stopped Find a door, a bench or a railing where fresh paint doesn't quite cover the old color, and photograph the edge where the two meet.
7. Day 14: Turn around once Once today, stop and look properly at where you've just come from. The way back is a place you never see.

Days 15 to 21: go somewhere

1. Day 15: A street with no memory Walk down a street in your area you have never been down. Every neighborhood has two or three.
2. Day 16: The far side of the main road Cross the busiest road near you on foot and walk ten minutes on the other side. It's often a different neighborhood with a different name.
3. Day 17: The street with the best name Pick the street within walking distance whose name you like most and go stand on it. Find out, if you can, who or what it's named after.
4. Day 18: Under a bridge you cross Find the underneath of a bridge you normally only go over, where a public path allows it. Hardly anyone goes down there.
5. Day 19: Toss a coin at every corner Heads left, tails right, for twenty minutes. A dead end is fine; turn around and toss again.
6. Day 20: Twenty minutes outward, then turn Walk away from home for twenty minutes in a direction you never take. The way back doesn't count.
7. Day 21: In by a different entrance Enter a park, a station or a shopping street by an entrance you've never used, and leave by another one.

Days 22 to 28: the clock and the weather

1. Day 22: Out before you eat Be outside in your first hour awake, before breakfast. Two minutes is enough.
2. Day 23: Lunch break outdoors Spend part of your midday break outside. Standing up counts.
3. Day 24: Be outside at sunset Look up the exact time. Set off fifteen minutes before. Don't photograph it; just watch.
4. Day 25: The half hour after sunset Be out while the streetlights are on and the sky isn't black yet. Stay on lit streets near home.
5. Day 26: Out as soon as the rain stops The twenty minutes after a shower belong to almost nobody. Wet ground, clean air, everything shining.
6. Day 27: Stand in the weather for two minutes Rain on your face with no hood, or wind, or frost. Close your eyes. It's louder that way.
7. Day 28: Weekend morning, nine to twelve Be outside somewhere in that window on a Saturday or Sunday. Before the second coffee, or with it.

Days 29 and 30: bring it together

1. Day 29: An hour outside, going nowhere far Stay out for a full hour and let the distance be small. Sit, stand, drift. The hour is the task, not the ground covered.
2. Day 30: A loop you've never closed Plan a circuit of three to five kilometers that passes through at least two streets from the last four weeks, and finish at your own door.

What to do on day 31

Most people who get to thirty want to keep going, and the problem becomes supply: coming up with the next small thing, every morning, for the rest of the year. That is roughly what RLQuest is. Each morning it hands you three to ten quests from a library of more than 2,700, from five minutes to half an hour, picked to fit your age, interests, the weather, the season and the time you've set. Many of the days above are quests in it almost word for word: five hundred steps to begin, moss on one side only, the back of the sign, out as soon as the rain stops. The difference is that the app checks: the step count, the recorded route, the photo, the clock, and the new hexagon tiles your walk uncovered on a map that fills in as you go. Streaks and 213 achievements keep the count honest for you.

It's free to download for iPhone and Android, and a Premium subscription adds more quests per day. The thirty days above stand on their own. Day 31 is where the app earns its place.