The Practice-history day view is the screen the whole "beyond the rings" exercise is really about: it's the Apple-Fitness day-view information architecture (navbar · week · big selected-day mark · that day's detail). Here is that same screen rendered in the four shortlisted shape languages, so you can see whether each metaphor holds up when it has to show a past, selectable day — not just a live "today".
A strong past day is a tall, leafy sprig: stem near full (90%), all three leaves open (3/3), bloom only part-open (focus lagged). The week strip becomes a garden row — you read effort as plant height at a glance.
Holds up: a past day is just a fully-grown (or stunted) plant — no "closing" language needed, and the narrative line ("the bloom's not quite full") falls out of the metaphor naturally.
The selected day is a keybed: light across ~90% of the keys (time), all three piece-keys lit honey (3/3), felt rail at 60% (focus). The week strip is seven little keybeds, warmer = more time.
Holds up, with care: unmistakably a piano, so zero Fitness resemblance — but three channels on one object is the busiest to read at a glance; the metric chips below carry the exact numbers so the hero can stay impressionistic.
The day is three needle reads frozen in place: Time ~90%, Pieces pinned full-right (3/3), Focus ~60%. The week strip is a row of tiny gauges — the needle angle tells you the day at a glance.
Holds up best: a frozen needle reads a past value more precisely than any other form here, so history stays instantly scannable. The tuner/metronome cue keeps it musical without asking one object to juggle three channels.
The day is one completed bar: tempo bar to ~90%, three filled noteheads (3/3), crescendo open to 60%, closing double-barline lit (day done). The week strip is the payoff — the whole week reads as a line of music, full measures vs. rests, Thursday highlighted.
Holds up beautifully for history: no other form turns a *week* into a single legible artifact. Trade-off: the single-day hero is the least quantitative, so the metric chips do the exact-number work beneath it.