Effective focus during a meeting

The idea: an empty board means the meeting is done

Most meetings suffer from the same problem: too many topics, not enough structure, and no clear way to know when you're done. This pattern solves that by turning your meeting into a board that empties itself as you go.

The principle is simple:

1. Before the meeting, prepare a board showing only the cards to discuss (e.g. 10 prospects to review, 8 tasks to triage, 5 incidents to close).
2. Go full-screen with Presenter mode — no distractions, just your cards.
3. Discuss each card, make a decision, and change its status. The card disappears from the board.
4. When the board is empty, the meeting is over.

Examples

A weekly prospect review

A sales team uses Klaro Cards as their CRM. Each card is a prospect, with dimensions like stage, owner, and next action.

1. Before: create a Grid board filtered on stage = to review. This week, 8 prospects need attention.
2. During: the team meets, projects the board in Presenter mode. They open each prospect, discuss the situation, and move the stage to "qualified", "on hold", or "lost". Each card disappears.
3. After: the board is empty. All 8 prospects have a clear next step. The CRM is already up to date.

An incident triage / escalation meeting

A support or ops team tracks incidents in Klaro Cards. Each card is an incident, with dimensions like severity, status, and assigned team.

1. Before: create a Grid board filtered on status = needs triage. Today, 12 incidents came in since the last meeting.
2. During: the team goes through each incident. They assess severity, decide whether to handle internally or escalate, and assign a team. The status moves to "in progress" or "escalated" — the card disappears from the triage board.
3. After: the board is empty. Every incident has an owner, a severity level, and a clear next action. Nothing fell through the cracks.

This pattern works for any meeting where a set of items needs a decision: sprint planning, budget reviews, editorial meetings, hiring pipeline reviews, and more.## Configure Klaro Cards step by step

Configuring Klaro Cards step by step

Step 1: Prepare your board

You don't necessarily need a dedicated "meeting" board. Often, you already have a project with the right cards — a CRM project with prospects, a task tracker with pending items, a support project with open tickets.

Choose the display mode

Create a new board (or configure an existing one) and set the display mode to Grid — it gives a simple, visual overview of your cards without grouping. See The Anatomy of a Board for a full overview of display modes.

To change the display mode:

1. Press b to open Board settings.
2. In the Display section, select Grid.

Set up a filter that the meeting will "consume"

The key to this pattern is filtering the board on a dimension value that you'll change during the meeting. That way, processed cards naturally disappear.

You can configure filters in two ways:

From the filter panel (quick, temporary): press f to toggle the filter panel on the left side of the board. Click on a dimension to expand it and select the values you want to show.

From Board settings (permanent, saved with the board): press b, then go to Cards shown. Expand the dimension you want to filter on (e.g. Progress) and select only the values that represent items to discuss.

Keep it tight: 5 to 15 cards is ideal for a focused meeting. If you see too many cards, narrow your filter (e.g. add a priority or assignee filter).

Step 2: Go full-screen with Presenter mode

Press p to enter Presenter mode. The toolbars disappear and the board takes up the full screen — perfect for projecting or screen-sharing.

Enable real-time refresh for participants

If participants have their own laptops open on the same board, switch the board refresh method to real-time so everyone sees changes instantly:

1. Press b to open Board settings.
2. In the Refresh section, select Real-time.

Now when one person changes a card's status, the card disappears on everyone's screen simultaneously.

Pro tip: you can combine Presenter mode and real-time refresh by adding ?_presenterMode=true to your board URL — handy for a permanent meeting screen.

Step 3: Discuss, decide, update

Go through the cards one by one:

1. Click on a card to open it. The card panel appears, showing its description and all its dimensions.
2. Discuss the item with the team.
3. Change the status (or whatever dimension your filter targets) directly from the card panel. For example, change stage from "to review" to "qualified", "on hold", or "lost".

As soon as the value changes, the card no longer matches the board's filter and disappears. The board shrinks in real time. Progress is visible to everyone.

Step 4: The board is empty — you're done

No need to wonder whether you've covered everything. When there are no cards left, every item has been discussed and decided on. The meeting ends naturally.

All decisions are already recorded as dimension changes on the cards themselves — no separate meeting notes needed. You can always go back to any card to see what was decided.