How it works
The whiteboard has one card for each client. Each card is short: where we got to, and the next step or what’s holding it up. The column it sits in tells you how urgent it is:
- Now. I need to do something this week.
- Soon. It’s mine, but it can wait a week or two.
- Steady. It’s with the client. I’m waiting on them.
- Archive. Finished.
I scan Now first, and that’s my week. Steady tells me who I’m waiting on and who might need a nudge. Anything that’s done goes to Archive, so the board only ever shows what’s live.
What makes it work is that I don’t keep it up to date. Claude does. Any time I work on a client’s project, whether that’s sending an email, delivering a file or booking a meeting, I finish by saying “update the whiteboard”. Claude rewrites that client’s card and moves it to the right column. It asks me before archiving anything, so nothing disappears without my say-so.
I never ask Claude what’s on the whiteboard. I just look at it.
Don’t want Obsidian?
Skip it. The whiteboard is a plain text file, so you can open it in any text editor and read it as a list of cards under four headings. Obsidian just shows the same file as a board, which is quicker to scan. I use Obsidian.
Using it
Any time you work on a client or a project, finish with:
Update the whiteboard.
That’s all. Because it’s a skill, it works in any chat, and Claude knows what you’ve just done, so it knows which card to change.
The whiteboard shows the next step for every client. When you want the full story on one of them, that’s what The Current State is for.