Rehearse
Do the whole real act where failure costs nothing; keep none of the output, and stop before it starts to count.
Surgeons drill the operation on a model first.
Seen in Augusto Boal, Forum Theatre, from Theatre of the Oppressed, 1974
Try it on your work
Do the whole physical sequence of an upcoming task with stand-in materials, empty-handed if needed, at full care and speed, one complete run. The moment you hesitated is where the real attempt will fail.
Speak tomorrow's most consequential conversation out loud, playing both parts, until each side has spoken three times. The line you couldn't make the other side say is the one to prepare for.
Walk your plan through one imagined ordinary day at the pace of talking it aloud, step by step, and halt at the first step that has no answer. That step, not the hard-looking one, is the rehearsal's finding.
How it has been used
Do it fully, where it doesn't count: the dress rehearsal, the fire drill, the mock exam. Everything real except the consequences. The move forbids letting the rehearsal count: if you keep the output, it was a performance and the protection is gone.
Where it leads
Grouped under Let me find out what holds up