How BrainDojo Puts Together Today's Training

At the top of the home screen in BrainDojo sits Today’s Training. The app describes it in one line: “Automatically picks your daily training. Updated at midnight every day.” There are 2, 3 or 5 trainings, depending on how you answered the first-time setup.

Finish those few and your brain training for the day is done. What the screen does not tell you is why these particular trainings were picked, or how to change them. In this post I explain how Today’s Training is put together, as far as you can see it from the user’s side. The first session is covered in Getting Started with BrainDojo, so here I pick up from there.

The five setup questions

The first time you open BrainDojo, the “BrainDojo setup” starts. It is five questions and takes about 30 seconds.

“What do you struggle with the most?”
“How much time can you spend a day?”
“When will you train?”
“How old are you?”
“How many days a week will you train?”

When you finish, a screen titled “Your training is ready” shows what was set up: how many trainings a day, the time of your daily reminder, and “Training picked for what you told us”. Of the five questions, the first two shape what goes into Today’s Training.

What you struggle with decides what comes up more often

The first question has five options, and you can pick as many as apply.

I can’t stay focused
I forget things
I struggle to plan ahead
I rush and make mistakes
Reading and writing are hard

Trainings that match your answers get priority in Today’s Training. Roughly, the pairings look like this.

“I can’t stay focused” brings training that asks you to hold your attention or switch it: counting, sorting by colour, doing two tasks at once.
“I forget things” brings memory training, where you keep in mind something you saw a moment ago.
“I struggle to plan ahead” brings puzzles and arithmetic where you work out the steps.
“I rush and make mistakes” brings arithmetic and quick judgement where you need to be fast and accurate at the same time.
“Reading and writing are hard” brings handwriting, reading aloud, copying sentences and calligraphy.

Not every slot goes to your answers, though. The remaining ones are filled from the other trainings. Your concerns sit at the centre, and you still meet kinds of training you might not choose yourself.

If you want to change your answers later, go to Settings and use “Redo the initial setup” to answer the five questions again. Today’s Training follows the new answers.

The time you have decides how many

The second question, “How much time can you spend a day?”, sets the number of trainings.

3 minutes gives 2
5 minutes gives 3
10 minutes or more gives 5

Each training is short, mostly one or two minutes. You can check your current number under “Today’s Training Settings” in Settings, where it shows as “Training Count”. To change it, use “Redo the initial setup” and pick a different amount of time.

The third question sets the first time of your reminder: 8:00 for morning, 12:30 for daytime and 21:00 for evening. You can change it later in “Reminder Settings”, with a different time for each day of the week if you like. The fifth question becomes “This week’s goal” on the home screen.

A new set at midnight

Today’s Training changes to a new set every day at midnight. Within the same day it stays the same, however many times you open the app. So you can do one in the morning and the rest in the evening.

The trainings also follow the language of the app. If you use it in English, the reading aloud and writing trainings come in their English versions.

Some days a new training is picked. New trainings are for BrainDojo Plus, but on a day one lands in Today’s Training, the free version can play it that day. The card shows a “Free today” badge, and if notifications are on, you get a note that today’s menu includes a new training.

What happens when you finish

Each time you finish one, the card is marked “Completed” and a screen comes up for stamping the calendar. When all of them are done, a screen tells you today’s set is complete, and “A word from your master” on the home screen changes to something like “Today’s share is done. Well done.” The day also counts toward “This week’s goal”.

How it relates to the Brain Meter

The Brain Meter goes up with the number of different trainings you finish in a day, and it is full after three different ones. It goes back to 0% when the date changes.

So the link between the two depends on your number.

With 3 trainings, finishing Today’s Training fills the meter exactly.
With 2, the meter is at about two thirds when you finish. On a day with time to spare, add one more kind you have not done yet from “All Exercises” or “Favorites” and it fills.
With 5, the meter fills at the third one, and the last two are extra on top.

The meter is a rough guide for the day. On a busy day, stopping at two is fine, even if the meter is not full.

Free and Plus

Today’s Training itself is put together the same way on the free version and on Plus. Every training except the newest ones is free to play, and a new one is free on the day it lands in your menu, so the free version can play the whole daily menu. The free version shows ads.

BrainDojo Plus removes the ads and lets you play the new trainings anytime, whether or not they are in today’s menu. The details are in BrainDojo Free vs Plus.

Day to day

One way to use it is making Today’s Training, and only that, the daily rule at first. There is no time lost deciding what to do, so you can start as soon as the app opens. You can also start from the home screen widget.

After that, press and hold a training you like to add it to “Favorites”, and add it on days when you have more time. The Brain Dojo Check is a separate feature: once a day it measures processing speed, inhibition and short-term memory. Today’s Training is for training and the Brain Dojo Check is for measuring.

What mattered in making it

In the BrainDojo developer interview, I was asked how the numbers 2, 3 and 5 were decided. The answer was:

I designed it so it isn’t a burden to keep up every day, but there is still enough load for the training to actually activate the brain.

Asked what decides whether someone keeps doing something, the answer was “Ease and a sense of growth.” Not having to choose what to do each day, and finishing in a small number of trainings, are the “ease” part. Setting a goal of days per week instead of asking for every day comes from the same interview: “When doing it every day is the standard for a habit, I felt it was pretty tough.”

How much time to spend is in How Many Minutes a Day Should You Do Brain Training?, and how to keep going is in Why Brain Training Habits Fail, and What Keeps Them Going.