A life dashboard is one screen that shows your day and the few numbers that say how life is going. Your calendar, a short to-do list, a focus timer, your habits, and the numbers you check every day, like revenue or subscribers. You glance at it and know where you stand.
Search for a life dashboard and Notion templates are among the first results. A template is a sound start, but it holds what you typed into it, so it is only as current as your last edit. A dashboard worth opening keeps time, runs the timer and pulls in your calendar without being asked.
This guide gives you eight sections to put on one, what each needs to stay current, and two ways to build it. The free way is Notion. The other is Context Board, a live board where the Calm desk template opens with a clock, timer, calendar, to-dos and habits already on it.
- A life dashboard is one screen for your day and a few numbers. Eight sections fit on one screen: today, calendar, to-dos, habits, focus, numbers, goals and a note.
- Start with three sections. Superhuman’s guide suggests starting with just 2 to 3 goals and adding more gradually.
- Notion is the free route. It has a free plan for individuals, and what the page shows is what you put there.
- The live route is Context Board. Its Calm desk template opens with a clock, focus timer, calendar, to-dos and habits. Free for 3 days, then $12 a month.
What a life dashboard is
A life dashboard is a place to see the parts of your life you want to watch, in one view. Superhuman’s guide defines it as “a dashboard where you can track metrics related to your personal life”, and sorts the metrics into health, work, finances and personal growth.
You’ll also see it called a life OS. Gridfiti’s Notion guide uses the two names for the same thing, an all-in-one life dashboard. Call it either one. The test is whether you open it every day.
A life dashboard stops working when it goes stale. The same Superhuman guide says it is “going to be pretty difficult to keep up with” if you have to enter all the data by hand. So every section below says what keeps it current.
What to put on a life dashboard
These eight sections fit on one screen.
| Section | What it shows | What it needs | Context Board widget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Today | The date, the time, the forecast | A city for the weather | Clock, Weather |
| Calendar | Today’s events and the next few | Your calendar’s iCal link | Calendar |
| Three things | What has to get done today | You, each morning | Tasks |
| Habits | A few daily ticks and their streaks | One tick a day | Habits |
| Focus | A timer for deep work | Nothing | Focus timer |
| Numbers | Revenue, subscribers, search clicks | A connection, or a number a day | Number, Chart |
| Goals | Progress toward a target | A target and a number | Goal |
| A note | What you want in view this week | A few words | Notes |
Pick the three you would open the screen for. Add the rest when you open it daily.
To-dos. Name the list Three things and keep to it. A list you can’t finish is one you stop reading.
Habits. A streak resets when you miss a day, which feels worse than it is. In the study behind the well-known 66-day habit figure, a single missed day had little effect on later gains, while many missed days did. So read the row of ticks as well as the streak number.
Numbers. Pick the numbers you check anyway, like revenue, subscribers or search clicks. If you run more than one business, give each one its main number. Each needs a way in, covered below.
Beyond the eight, a Countdown suits a trip or a deadline, a Links widget holds the tabs you open every morning, and an Image widget shows one picture.
An example built from Calm desk, with a few extras added. Every number on it is example data.
- TodaySunny64°
- ThuShowers58°
- FriCloudy61°
- Call with Priya10:00 AM
- Deep work, no meetings11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
- Lunch with Sam1:00 PM
- Dentist4:30 PM
- Send the Acme invoice
- Reply to trial feedback
- Walk before lunch
- Moved6 days
- Read 20 pages11 days
- Shipped something4 days
- Lights out by 112 days
Phone in the other room until 11. Dentist at 4:30.
Build a life dashboard in Notion
Notion is the free route, and a good one if your notes already live there. Its pricing page lists a free plan “for individuals to organize personal projects and life”.
- Find a template. Open Marketplace in the sidebar and look for a life dashboard. Free ones say Add and paid ones say Buy for a price.
- Cut it down. Delete every section you won’t open. Keep three.
- Put in your own. Replace the sample habits, goals and tasks with yours.
- Update it daily. Tick the habits, type the numbers and clear yesterday’s tasks.
- Embed what should move. Notion can embed outside pages, so a clock or a forecast can sit on yours, but some sites forbid it, and embeds that need a login won’t work in Notion’s desktop or mobile apps.
It does the job for a page you review. A page you build by hand stays as current as your last edit. Notion’s dashboard view, which puts up to 12 widgets on one page, is on the Business and Enterprise plans, and each widget shows a database view, so the number has to be in a Notion database first.
Build a life dashboard on Context Board
Context Board is ours, so weigh the bias. It is a live board: the clock ticks, the timer runs, and the calendar and weather refresh while the board is open.
- Start from Calm desk. Sign in at board.contextbolt.com with an email code, choose New board, and under “Or start a canvas from a template” pick Calm desk. It opens with an analog clock, the time in four cities, a 25-minute focus timer, a calendar, a note called Today, a list called Three things and three habits. The clock, timer, note, list and habits work with nothing connected.
- Make the habits yours. The starter habits are Shipped something, Posted and Moved. Remove the ones you don’t want and add yours with the Habit button.
- Show your calendar. On the Calendar widget choose Show your events and paste your calendar’s iCal link. In Google Calendar, that is Settings, your calendar, Integrate calendar, then Secret address in iCal format. The board tests the link first and says why if it can’t read it. Anyone with that link can see the calendar, so keep it to yourself.
- Add the weather. Add a Weather widget, type your city and pick it. A Sun and moon widget does the same for sunrise and sunset.
- Add your numbers. Open Connect and pick Stripe, beehiiv, GitHub or Search Console, and your agent can build the widget. For a number with no app behind it, add a Number, Chart or Goal widget and type in your first value. If you use Claude Code or Codex, the small program on your computer adds how much of each plan is left.
- Ask your agent. Add Context Board to Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, then ask in plain words: “Add ‘book the dentist’ to my to-do list.” It finds your list. Everything an agent does shows its name and can be undone.
- Press F. The board fills the screen. Esc leaves it.
If your day is mostly meetings, make a Calendar board instead. Sign in with Google there, add as many accounts as you use, and a change you make to a Google event goes back to Google. Ask your own Claude or Codex to “plan my day” with the tasks you want done, and it puts each one in a free time, on the board’s own calendar rather than Google’s. A calendar widget on your dashboard can show that board. Our Sunsama alternatives guide compares the daily planners built around that job.
Where the numbers come from
Stripe, beehiiv, GitHub and Search Console connect once, and their widgets stay current while the board is open. A number with no connection gets onto the board in these ways.
- You type it. On a Number, Chart or Goal widget, “Or type today’s number” adds it, and each one is kept as a point, so a chart builds up.
- You tell your agent. “Add 12 to my Calls booked chart” sends the number to that widget’s stream.
- An automation sends it. The push API takes a number from n8n, Zapier, Make, cron or curl.
- A JSON API provides it. The board can read any JSON API address and pick a value out of it.
Typing is the one that goes stale. Superhuman’s advice is to automate as much as you can, so keep typed numbers to the two or three you would check anyway. For business numbers like revenue and traffic, the KPI dashboard examples show where each one comes from.
Keep a life dashboard in use
Put it where you will see it. A spare monitor in full screen works, and the sleep setting on that computer decides when it dims, because full screen doesn’t change it.
Link your computer once and your own Claude Code or Codex can write a Brief on the board each morning, at the time you pick. It runs on your computer, on the plan you already pay for.
Check in on a schedule. Superhuman suggests reviewing the goals at least quarterly and ideally monthly. Delete any tile you haven’t looked at since the last review.
If you’d rather compare tools first, our Notion alternatives guide lays out the options. Otherwise, try Context Board free for 3 days, then $12 a month, and start from Calm desk.