War Board mini workshop,
Vol. 2 — The daily win

What you'll need to get started

• Your to-do list of all the things you'd like to achieve as soon as possible
• A whiteboarding app (your choice, mine is Milanote), an empty wall in your home or office, or even index cards will do for this particular template
• This mini workshop and companion guide, which will walk you through setting things up

And if you're using a wall instead of a whiteboarding app, you'll also need:

• Tape (I use double-sided, but you can use one-sided or washi tape, too)
• Index cards or Post-It notes
• Marker

And if you're using index cards instead, you'll obviously need:

• Index cards or Post-It notes

The War Board Method is a way to set and achieve your goals using a visual planning and execution system.

I started "war boarding" at least a decade ago (although I didn't call it that at the time) as a way of organizing all the big ideas I had in my head.

Whether I was trying to launch a business, start a podcast or website, write a book or course, or plan a new product or service line, war boarding was the only way I could visualize and execute the idea. (Otherwise, it was just a big, overwhelming, jumbled mess in my head.)

I'd clear off a wall in my office (say, 5-feet high by 8- or 10-feet wide), grab a stack of index cards and a marker, and sit on the floor in front of it, writing and sorting, writing and sorting.

At the end of a few hours, I'd have a visual game plan I could hold in my mind and execute more easily.

Fast forward a few years, I then moved to digital war boarding using Milanote.

I launched a mentoring program for young entrepreneurs and creatives, and we needed a way to collaborate on war boards in order to help them launch their own dream projects or businesses.

And I've been using digital war boarding ever since.

Why is the War Board Method?

The idea for war boarding, to me, seemed pretty simple. Over the years, however, I started recognizing that its simplicity was exactly what made it so valuable.

For me, existing productivity systems were always overly complex and eventually abandoned.

I felt like I needed a PhD to use them. At the very least, that's how much time I'd have to study them in order to understand them well enough to use them.

And if I dared get behind on maintenance steps involved with those systems, the whole thing quickly fell apart, becoming too hairy to manage, so I'd have to start over (usually with a new system).

With war boarding, all I had to do was start a new board, keep the components I wanted to keep or that were still relevant, and save the rest in case I ever needed those pieces again.

When my war boards got unruly or bloated, it was easy enough to start from scratch and simply take a photo—in the case of physical war boards on a wall—or archive the older one when using digital.

What I liked about the War Board Method and war boards was that they didn't feel like a productivity system at all. I didn't have to "learn" anything about it in order to use it. Diving into the work was the system.

Over time, I did develop templates for it, but they were purely to duplicate things I tended to repeat, whether for myself or the kids in the mentoring program. They were not at all required to war board.

But—they are good for getting the gears turning, especially if you're new to war boarding, so that's what we'll be covering here.

What we'll be covering here

In this mini workshop and its companion guide, we'll be covering one of several templates and planning sequences I use for kickstarting a war board.

This one's called "The daily win," and it's a way of using a war board to help you prioritize, focus on, and execute your mission-critical daily tasks.

Here's a quick peek of "The daily win" template and planning sequence.

The accompanying video (~10 min) walks you through it step by step, and this article serves as a copy-and-paste companion guide so that you don’t have to pause the video to take notes or scrub through timelines to find a specific prompt.

The philosophy behind the War Board Method

Where other productivity systems fall short

Most people don’t quit because they lack ambition. They quit because the tools they’re given are either too vague (“Just set goals!”) or too complex (“Here’s a 400-step productivity system to help you get things done!”).

On top of that, most planning systems ignore the emotional and psychological realities of change.

The point of the War Board Method is simple: most people aren't short on ideas, they're short on a structure that helps them stay with those ideas long enough to act on them and bring them to life.

The psychological framework:
Ancient wisdom meets neuroscience plus strategic coaching

The war within

The phrase "war board" comes from one of my favorite quotes in the Introduction of the Eknath Easwaran translation of The Bhagavad Gita:

"The subject is the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage if he or she is to emerge from life victorious."

The work is not just about productivity; it is about the war within, the struggle to move from default living to deliberate living.

The phrase is not from productivity culture or from hustle mythology, but from one of the oldest texts in existence, describing the only battle that actually matters: the one happening inside your head.

The war board becomes your battle plan, as well as the "war room" for strategizing and executing on that plan.

Whether your goal is building a business, changing careers, writing a book, improving your health, or redesigning your life entirely, you'll quickly discover that the greatest obstacles are rarely logistical.

Most are internal.

Fear.

Confusion.

Overwhelm.

Self-doubt.

Distraction.

Avoidance.

The war board exists to help you confront those obstacles directly rather than letting them quietly dictate your choices.

The story you want to live

"What story would you choose to live by? The answer offers a clue to your soul, your deepest self." — Catherine Ann Jones, The Way of Story

Most productivity systems focus heavily on tasks. The War Board Method focuses on context.
Instead of asking:

"What should I do today?"

It asks:

"What story am I trying to live?"

Then it helps you work backward from that answer.

The system combines ...

• Long-term vision,
• Medium-term planning,
• Quarterly execution,
• Daily action,
• Reflection,
• Obstacle management, and
• Fear management

... into a single visual environment.

Everything lives together. Everything remains visible.

And because the board evolves with you, it can be adapted as your goals, circumstances, and understanding change.

The philosophy in summary*

The War Board Method holds two truths at once: you need enough philosophical grounding to stay oriented, as well as enough practical structure to know what to do next.

It serves as a visual planning and execution system designed to get what's in your head out into the world as quickly and clearly as possible.

More importantly, it gives your goals, plans, obstacles, fears, next actions, and progress a permanent home outside your head.

Instead of relying on memory, motivation, or willpower, you create a visible command center for the life or project you're trying to build.

*Note: I cover more of the philosophy in Mini workshop, Vol. 1. — The journey.

What a war board looks like

There are as many variations on a war board as there are people, which is another reason I've come to rely on the method.

No two people are alike.

No two projects are alike.

No two working styles are alike.

You can mix and match the various war boarding templates to meet your needs and preferences, as well as the specifics of a given project.

Here are a couple of screenshots from the first mini workshop example to give you an idea (for a full breakdown, see Mini workshop Vol. 1).

In this specific mini workshop, we'll cover one of several templates and planning sequences for use within a war board, “The daily win,” but If you’d like a good starting point to kickoff your own war board — a more comprehensive version, see the war board mini workshop, Vol. 1 — the journey.

The daily win:
template & planning sequence
of the War Board Method

"The daily win" template and planning sequence is just one of several templates available within the (if you haven’t heard of it, a good place to start is with the war board mini workshop, vol. 1 — the journey).

The companion video will walk you through it step by step, but here's a quick overview.

Note that I've include a prompt sheet at the end of this walkthrough. No need to take notes.

“The daily win” is a way of Using a war board to help you prioritize, focus on, and execute your mission-critical daily tasks, so even if you don’t have a war board, this mini workshop and companion guide can help you improve your productivity, especially if you feel overwhelmed by all you have to do and never feel like you accomplished much of anything by the end of a day.

In this workshop, we'll walk through one of several templates and planning sequences for launching your own war board. This one is "The daily win," which will help you prioritize (and execute) your mission-critical tasks each day. You'll see it here as a sub-board to a more complete war board.

Here's what the full template looks like from inside. It's the more complete version, but we'll walk through it step by step to show you how we arrive at this point by the end.

Each of these items is a sub-board to "The daily win" template within the War Board Method.

We'll start with the "Success" sub-board.

Every day, you have a million tasks to do, but you can't do them all in a single day.

The problem is, when you have so many things to do, no matter how much you get done in a day, you can feel like you didn't accomplish anything.

Open loops signal "incomplete," so you never feel accomplished or satisfied if you can't close the loop by the end of a day or work session, no matter how much work you actually got done.

This template helps you develop a better habit and mindset around that.
At the start of each day, you'd begin with "The daily win" template to help with task prioritization.

So—when looking at all the things you have to do, you're going to have to pick a realistic number of tasks you can ACTUALLY complete in a given day.

As you're looking over your list, you'll complete this sentence: "Today would be a success if ..." (Fill in the blank.)

Within this sub-board, you'd list ONLY one to three most important tasks for the day. That's it. And you'd rank them in order of priority.

Priority 1 is mission-critical. It's the most important thing you need to do today.

Priority 2 is important and urgent, but less so than #1.

And Priority 3 is important and urgent, but less so than Priority 2.

Let's go back to "The daily win" overview page, and we'll come back to this ...

... and then to the "Bonus" sub-board.

So—in the "Success" sub-board, you framed your day by filling in the statement, "Today would be a success if ..." (Fill in the blank.)

And "It would be a bonus if I could ..." (Fill in this blank.)

Add one to three more things here, and ONLY one to three. Remember, you already have one to three priorities in the "Success" sub-board.

You'll assign these by priority just as you did with the "Success" items.

Priority 4 is important but not as urgent as the priorities you set there. If you complete the tasks there, this will be your very next thing to do.

Priority 5 is slightly less urgent, and same with Priority 6.

Back to the overview page, and we’ll go to the “Exceptional” sub-board.

Same as before, "This would be an exceptional day if I could ..."

List one to three things ONLY, as you already have up to six priorities for the day.

Priority 7 is important but not urgent and it's also not AS important or urgent as the items you selected for the "Bonus" sub-board. You'll get to this task if you can, and if you can't, it might move to a higher priority on your next work day.

Also, one thing to note, you can use the "Exceptional" sub-board for nice-to-dos or want-to-dos and make them more fun than strictly tackling priority items. You be the judge on what "exceptional" means to you and how you want to balance your days.

Once you’re done here, we’ll return to the overview page.

Now that you've seen the template overview, how do you use it? Especially if you have a lot of to-dos on your plate right now.

We'll make a task list.

Then let's start with a column for all the tasks.

You'll add them one at a time, one per note card, until you have them all down.

From there, it's time to sort.

For Columns 2 through 5, we'll make ourselves an Eisenhower Matrix, as well as a want-to-do column.

First is the "Important" and "Urgent" column. These are the most important things (or MITs, in case I reference them that way later).

Next is the "Important" and "NOT urgent" column. These are things you need to do as soon as you're able, but they're not immediately urgent and can wait behind more pressing tasks.

After that is the "NOT important" and "Urgent" column. These are the fires, the have-to-dos. Usually, these are other people's priorities or admin tasks, things like bills, invoicing, emails, etc. You want to do as little of this as possible, in tightly contained work blocks, but they're not tasks you can completely avoid.

After that is the "NOT important" and "NOT urgent" column. These are the "avoid-at-all-cost" items, things that might have sounded good at the time, but that might not add value to your work or life in any way. This is effectively your "Do not do" list.

And, last but not least, is the "Want-to-do" column. These are things that would make you love your life or work more, but that aren't necessarily "mission-critical." (And not everything has to be mission-critical.)

Once you have all your columns, you'll now drag each of your tasks into its appropriate spot—and this is FOR TODAY. Tomorrow, you might rank them differently.

Now, I've rearranged and expanded the columns to make everything easier to see.

All of the items have been sorted in order of priority and urgency.

The first column contains the most important AND most urgent tasks for today.

I like to copy the importance/urgency dots to each task card. (Two reds means important AND urgent.)

if you like to do this, too, you'll repeat it for the other columns and tasks.

This is a good time to take a good look at the overview of tasks that need to be done. Obviously, you're not going to be able to get all of this done in a single day, so you're going to have to discern what you CAN do, what you'd LIKE to do, and what you MUST do.

So think: What would make today a success? Pick those items from the pile.

You can press CONTROL and hold it down to select multiple items. Then drag those into "The daily win" overview page.

Once you’re done with this, you can Then click "The daily win" link in the navigation to return to that page, where you'll see all the tasks you moved in the "Unsorted" tab.

Select them all and drag them into the "Success" sub-board. (Note here, this is for illustration purposes—although you may prefer it regardless—we're going to drag them from sub-board to sub-board until they're sorted. After doing this a while, you'll be able to distinguish more quickly and without having to move them all.)

Again, you'll see all the tasks you moved in the "Unsorted" tab.

From these, which is the MOST important item?

Copy JUST the text from the note and paste it into the Priority 1 card to the left. You can then delete that note in the "Unsorted" tab.

You'll see I left the priority/urgency dots. This is optional, but in case you don't complete them today, you may wish to keep the dots so that you'll remember how you ranked them today.

Repeat for Priority 2 and Priority 3.

Then select all the remaining tasks and drag them back into "The daily win" overview page.

Now drag them into the "Bonus" sub-board.

Repeat the process with the "Bonus" tasks.

Then drag the remaining task back into the overview ...

... which you'll place in the "Exceptional" sub-board.

And then we'll go back to the overview.

So now we have all of today's tasks sorted—into "Success," "Bonus," and "Exceptional."

Now you'll just start at the beginning.

Complete all of the "Success" items BEFORE moving on to the "Bonus" tasks.

Then, after completing all "Bonus" tasks, move on to the "Exceptional."
A day when you complete all "Success" items is a success.

For the perfectionists among us, appreciate that you have done enough for today to be considered a WIN.

Anything more than that is a bonus, and anything more than THAT is exceptional.

There will be days when you aren't able to do anything beyond the "Success" tasks, and that's okay. Some days will be like that.

There will be other days when you can do "Bonus" tasks, and even days when you complete all the items in the "Exceptional" sub-board. Those days will help when you're not even able to make the "Success" bar, because those days will happen, too.

So—if you like this method for organizing your days, you can download the Milanote template for free by visiting WarBoardMethod.com.

And if you're interested in signing up for a war board session to help with more complicated planning and strategy, you can sign up for that there, too.

The War Board Method is a practical framework for self-authorship that bridges soul with strategy.

I'm always on the lookout for new Truants to add to the program.

If you're interested in figuring out what deserves your life, the War Board Method can help you identify what matters most and pursue it intentionally.

Learn everything you need to know at WarBoardMethod.com.

So, that gives you a rundown of "The daily win" template and planning sequence within the War Board Method.

In future workshops, I'll be breaking down other templates, as well as real-life use-cases, showing the various ways you can use the War Board Method to stay focused and organized, without overwhelm, as you work on building your dream life or project.

If you're interested in following along with this mini workshop series, you can subscribe here, over at Substack, or at WarBoardMethod.com.

Practical implementation notes

Here are a few practical implementation notes and workarounds, both for war boarding in general and for Milanote, should you decide to use it to build your digital war board.

Build the war board habit.

Your war board is an intentional environment, and the only way it'll work is if you develop the habit of using it each and every day.

There are a variety of ways to build the habit.

• Set an alarm to remind you to check your war board at the start of each work day (if you know you'll be at your desk by 9 AM, set an alarm to "Start with the war board" for 8:55).
• Pin your war board in your web browser so that it's always the first thing you see (direct war board overview link that bypasses the home page of Milanote).
• Make your war board link a prominent shortcut link (ideally, first place) on the home page of your web browser.
• Treat your war board as a sacred part of your daily routine. In my case, for example, my calendar, war board, and email inbox are my work/planning trifecta. Over time, I've developed the mindset that my war board is the most important of the three. It's where I'm deliberate and proactive (whereas my inbox and calendar are reactive). I want to control my time and attention, not have other people's priorities dictate to me. When I start with my war board, I know these are my plans, not someone else's.
• Create yourself a "big rock daily work block" that you protect at all costs. A focused hour early in your routine for each day, and before your day job or external obligations take over. Open your board during this window to anchor your mind to your high-level intentions and map your daily execution steps before reacting to the outside world.

Start small.

The journey (War board mini workshop, vol. 1) or the daily win (this mini workshop) template and planning sequence is a good place for launching a war board. Either provides just enough structure to keep you moving forward with purpose. I would strongly recommend implementing “The journey” template, in addition to “The daily win” as soon as you can to get a more comprehensive and aligned direction for your life and/or work, but this will get you off to a good start, too.

Working with the quirks of Milanote

The mobile inbox trick

Milanote is a visually beautiful tool on a desktop, but complex visual boards can become clunky and difficult to navigate on a mobile screen.

To solve this, do not try to open more detailed boards on your phone.

Instead, build a simple, text-based board on your home screen called "Inbox." (covered earlier).

When you're out and about, open the Milanote app and navigate directly to the Inbox sub-board. Drop a quick note, photo, or link as a reminder for yourself, and then, when you get back to your desk, you can move any Inbox notes to their appropriate place within your full war board.

The "Unsorted" tab can serve the same purpose, if you prefer. I use them interchangeably.

The redundancy protocol (protecting your system)

Your war board will become a deeply personal, incredibly valuable roadmap of your mind and life.

While cloud platforms are remarkably secure, data glitches do happen, and visual layouts can accidentally be shifted, too.

Here are a few steps you can take to secure your war board.

• Back up using screenshots. Not ideal, obviously, but better than nothing should a digital system fail. After a big planning and war boarding session (not necessarily from day to day), screenshot your full board (frame by frame) and paste them one by one into a Google document, Dropbox, or other separate tool for safekeeping.
• Export your boards regularly. On desktop, the "Export" link is easily accessible, and you can download each board as a PDF, PNG, Word document, Markdown, or plain text file, and you can also download all images and files within each board into a ZIP file.

• Keep everything locked as much as possible. One Milanote quirk you'll learn quickly with use is that things are easily shifted and bumped. An accidental mouse move or pasting something within a board without checking if something's below the full length of it can wreak havoc on the visual layout and architecture of your board. So LOCK EVERYTHING. Unlock to move something, and then quickly lock it back. Click on an item, right-click (on Windows), and select "Lock position."

Another note on backups

The archive strategy: Before making major changes to your war board, duplicate it and rename it with a through-date (e.g., "War board through Dec 31, 2025"). Drag that copy into your war board archive. You'll reference old versions more than you think.

If you're war-boarding on a wall in your home or office, simply take a picture of it periodically. If you'll upload them to Google Drive or Dropbox, you can reference your board on the go and from your computer that way, too.


Daily-win-specific implementation notes


The morning reset

• Start every day in your "Task list" sub-board.
• Drag everything from the previous day back to "All the tasks" before you begin sorting for the new day.
• Your priorities might rank differently today than they did yesterday.

The power of the dot

• Use the red, green, and blue emoji dots as "priority/urgency dots" to rank all your tasks.
• Red = Important or urgent
• Green = Not important or not urgent
• Blue = Want-to-do
• Even if you don't complete a task, the dots remind you how you ranked it when you were in a calm, planning state. it can also let you see what you’re consistently avoiding.

The "Unsorted" tab

• If you are using Milanote for your war board, use the "Unsorted" tab as a temporary staging area when moving tasks between the main board and sub-boards.
• The “Unsorted“ tab is also a good dumping ground when you’re out and about and using mobile (not recommended for big planning sessions — use a laptop or desktop instead).

Frequently asked questions

Q: What if I don’t even finish my "Success" items?

A: There will be days when you aren’t able to make the Success bar. That’s okay. Those days happen. The board helps you see why (usually because Fires hijacked your time) so you can adjust tomorrow.

Q: Can I put "fun" things in my Exceptional board?

A: Absolutely. You are the judge of what "exceptional" means. It can be used for nice-to-dos or want-to-dos that make your day more fun or add value to your life or work in some way. These tasks don’t have to be strictly tactical.

Q: Why only 1–3 items per board?

A: Most people over-commit and under-deliver. By limiting Success to 1–3 items, you create a finish line you can actually cross. Completing your Success board is a WIN.

Q: What do I do with the fires?

A: Recognize them for what they are: usually other people's priorities or admin stuff. Don't let them live on your Success board unless they are truly mission-critical for your goals. Work on them in tightly-scheduled blocks and after your mission-critical tasks. Do not start your day with these kinds of tasks if you can avoid them. Set the last hour or two of your day or just before/after your lunch break, but keep the block constrained (say to one hour a day, or even less if you can manage).

Guidance for the chronic quitter

If you've tried every type of journaling under the sun, Notion templates, fancy apps, and corporate-feeling productivity trackers, but can't seem to stick with them to save your life, I'm here to tell you, you are not alone, and you're not a failure.

If there's a method, I've tried it.

If there's an office supply, book, or journal, I've bought it.

I've used this system for over a decade now, and it came about from years of doing web design and launching things with other people like me—two or more faulty humans with monkey minds trying to communicate, collaborate, and get things out of our heads and into the world.

And the War Board Method is the only method that worked.

Most systems fail because they demand absolute compliance. The war board is built to adapt to you, not the other way around.

The planning sequences (like "The journey") can help you kickstart your own war board, but they're made to be flexible.

Use what works, discard what doesn't, and develop your war board to match how you work and think—and it can be as minimalistic or as beautified as you'd like to make it, too.

The War Board Method is visual, iterative, narrative-driven, emotionally honest, and designed for real life.

The only rule: Keep showing up. The war is won in small, daily increments, slowly advancing the field.

In future mini workshops, I'll be covering the other templates and real-life use cases will expand the method further, but this sequence is a strong first place to begin.

You don’t need to know everything. You don’t need to be ready or confident. You only need to begin.

Your war board will meet you where you are and grow with you as you go.

Here are all the links and files you'll need to get started.