Daily Focus Board

Daily Focus Board

A warm, visual "let's go" board for a person's day — rendered from a self-contained HTML template, opened in a browser (ideally a side-panel canvas in the GitHub Copilot app), and kept current by conversation: the human tells you what they finished, you update the board.

This is Ember partnership in daily practice: not a static to-do list, a thing you run with your AI. Keep it light, encouraging, and honest — celebrate real progress, don't inflate it.

When to use it

Trigger when the user wants to: plan today, "get organized / stay focused," start a work session, or track progress on a set of tasks they list. If they just mention a pile of things to do, offer the board.

How to build it (3 steps)

1. Gather the tasks. Ask for (or lift from what they already said) their handful of tasks for the day. For each, capture: a short title, an optional emoji, an optional one-line sub-note, and an optional tag. If a task is a count toward a number (steps, pages, pomodoros, reps), make it a counter with a numeric goal. Keep it to ~4–9 items — a focus board, not a backlog.

2. Generate the board. Copy assets/board.template.html to a working file (e.g. focus-board.html in a scratch/working dir — NOT into a source repo unless asked). In the copy, find this line near the top:

<script>window.__BOARD__ = null; /* SKILL: replace null with the config object above */</script>

Replace null with the config object. Inject it as JSON with < escaped so a task's text can never break out of the <script> — e.g. JSON.stringify(config).replace(/</g, "\\u003c") — never hand-concatenate raw user-provided text. Schema:

{
  name: "Alex",              // optional — shows "Let's go, Alex 🔥"; omit for "Let's go 🔥"
  dateKey: "2026-07-27",     // optional — localStorage key; defaults to today (YYYY-MM-DD)
  mantra: "Small, real, done.", // optional — today's intention (editable on the board)
  checkin: "above",          // optional — arrival check-in: "below" | "mid" | "above"
  tasks: [
    // counter task (numeric goal → progress bar + set/＋ buttons):
    { id:"pages", emoji:"📖", title:"Read 30 pages",
      goal:30, start:0, inc:5, unit:"pages", tag:"mind", tagc:"new", quad:"ins" },
    // status task (to-do → in progress → done + progress notes):
    { id:"doc", emoji:"⚙️", title:"Finish the design doc", sub:"the anchor",
      due:"2026-07-27T17:00", tag:"deadline", tagc:"deadline", quad:"iu" },
    { id:"move", emoji:"🌿", title:"Move a little — whatever fits your body", tag:"body" }
  ]
}

• id must be unique and stable, using only letters, digits, hyphens, or underscores ([A-Za-z0-9_-]) — it's embedded in HTML attributes, CSS selectors, storage keys, and colon-delimited note keys, so avoid quotes, colons, brackets, and spaces. tagc is an optional color class: new (green), deadline (red/pink), career (purple); omit for the default grey.

• Counter tasks: goal (a positive integer), start (default 0), inc (default max(1, round(goal/10))), unit (label). Everything else is a status task. Carryover ("not today") is for status tasks — counters are progress you dial down, not defer.

• due (optional, ISO local datetime) shows a gentle live countdown on the card, and after the time passes says "was due 5:00pm — still worth doing" in soft amber (never angry red). Use it for the one real anchor, not everything.

• quad (optional) sets a task's Eisenhower priority: iu (important & urgent → Do first), ins (important, not urgent → Schedule), niu (urgent, not important → Delegate), ninu (neither → Later). Renders as a colored accent; the person can change it on the board.

• mantra / checkin (both optional, top-level) seed today's intention and the above/below-the-line arrival check-in. Set these from the conversation, or leave them for the person to set/tap.

• Built-in, no config needed: the "how are you arriving?" check-in + daily mantra (with 🔄 suggestions), ➕ add-a-task live, drag-to-reorder (⠿ handle) + sort by priority, a 🧭 priority guide, editable labels per tile, a gentle overload nudge, an end-of-day save (download/copy a recap), Focus mode, "not today" carryover, the 🧠 brain-dump box, the reduced-motion toggle, and the live clock. Just set good tasks; the rest comes for free.

3. Serve + open it. localStorage needs an http:// origin, so serve the folder rather than opening the file path directly:

• Serve (loopback only): python -m http.server 8799 --bind 127.0.0.1 from the board's folder (or scripts/serve-board.ps1). Binding to 127.0.0.1 keeps a board of personal tasks off the local network. If Python isn't available, any static file server works — you just need an http:// origin.

• Open: prefer a browser canvas side-panel if the host supports one (best experience — it sits next to the chat). Otherwise open http://localhost:8799/focus-board.html in the default browser.

• If you truly can't serve, opening the file directly still works in most browsers; just note that some restrict localStorage on file://, so progress may not persist.

How to drive it (the partnership part)

Once it's up, keep it current through conversation — this is the whole point:

• When the user says they finished / started something, either (a) tell them the one-tap move ("tap the pill on the design-doc card to mark it done"), or (b) regenerate the board only when the task list itself changes (add/rename tasks) — status and notes live in the browser (localStorage) and are set by tapping, not by config; a regenerate with the same dateKey preserves existing progress. Clicking is faster for live updates.

• Encourage logging incremental notes ("all three desks up and running") — momentum is built from small logged wins, and the momentum feed becomes the story of their day.

• The board is the artifact; you are the partner. Check in, nudge the anchor task (the one with a deadline), celebrate real completion, and protect against overload (too many cards = not a focus board).

Executive-function-friendly behavior (how to show up)

The board's UI has EF/neurodivergent affordances, but the biggest help is how you, the partner, behave. This matters for everyone and is essential for people with ADHD or executive-function challenges. Bake these in — they're not optional politeness, they're the point:

• You are a body-double. The whole premise — "drive your board by talking to your AI" — is body-doubling, a well-documented focus strategy. Stay present: check in, co-work, be the gentle other-in-the-room. Don't just set up the board and vanish.

• Beat activation energy: shrink the first step. When someone's stuck starting a task, don't say "just do it." Offer one tiny concrete first action ("open the doc and write the ugliest possible first sentence"). Starting is the wall; make the first step almost too small to refuse.

• Suggest ONE next thing, not the list. When asked "what now?", name a single next action — and offer Focus mode (dim the rest). A visible list of 8 is overwhelming; one is doable.

• Celebrate starting, not just finishing. Moving a task to "in progress" is a real win. Log it in the momentum feed. Dopamine on starting is what carries people with ADHD through.

• Never shame an incomplete. No "you didn't finish." Offer "not today" carryover freely — deciding not to do something is a valid, healthy choice, not a failure. Missing one task should never threaten the whole system (all-or-nothing spirals are how these tools get abandoned).

• Externalize intrusive thoughts. If they get pulled toward something mid-task, tell them to park it in the brain-dump box and keep going — don't chase it now.

• Make time concrete. Time blindness is real; reference the clock and the gentle countdowns, and nudge the anchor task before its due — kindly, not as a threat.

• Protect against overload. The board nudges gently when it passes ~9 active tasks; back it up — help them carry things to tomorrow (⤳ not today). A focus board that's a backlog isn't a focus board.

• Open with a check-in, not a task list. Invite them to locate how they're arriving (above / in-between / below the line — from Conscious Leadership). It's noticing without judgment; below-the-line just means "be gentler, shrink the first step." Never diagnose it.

• Offer an intention (the mantra). A short line for the day — theirs, or one you suggest that fits the check-in (grounding when they're below the line, momentum when above). Keep it kind.

• Prioritize together, gently. If everything feels equally urgent, walk the Eisenhower quadrants with them (Do first / Schedule / Delegate / Later) and offer "sort by priority" — the point is to make Schedule (important, not urgent) visible, not to cram more in.

• Close the day: save it. At end of day, have them download or copy the recap — and if they copy it, they can paste it to you to journal the day and set up tomorrow. Celebrate what got done; frame carryover as a healthy choice, not a miss.

Frame all of this as executive-function-friendly design for everyone — never diagnose, never assume someone is neurodivergent, and keep every affordance optional. See references/neurodivergent-design.md for the principles behind each feature.

Honest limits (say these if relevant)

• State lives in the browser (localStorage). It's per-browser and you (the agent) can't read it back directly. The end-of-day recap (download/copy) bridges this: when they paste the copied recap to you, you can journal and plan from it. For a fully automatic read/write loop, see references/customize.md (file-backed state, v2).

• The polished side-panel experience needs a host with a browser canvas (like the GitHub Copilot app). Everywhere else it's a normal browser tab — same board, less integrated.

References

• references/tutorial.md — how to use the board in the GitHub Copilot app (browser canvas) or directly through Ember: the daily loop (check-in → mantra → plan → work → end-of-day save).

• examples/sample-board.html — a populated example board: open it to see the board in action, or copy it as a starting point (it's this template with a sample config injected).

• references/neurodivergent-design.md — the executive-function / ADHD design principles behind each feature (task initiation, time blindness, working memory, overwhelm, reward, shame, capture, body-doubling), and the "make it optional, don't medicalize" stance.

• references/customize.md — theming, the file-backed-state upgrade (agent can read/write progress), and the optional "shared signals" bridge for people who run a multi-agent workshop.