Pipeline hygiene: keep your board honest
Practical habits for a healthy kanban board: stage discipline, spotting and closing stale deals, and why accurate won/lost outcomes matter for reports.
Your pipeline board is more than a to-do list — it is the single source of truth your forecasts and reports are built on. A board full of dead deals hides the real state of your sales. The good news: keeping it healthy takes a few small habits, and Ikigai gives you visual cues for each one.
Move deals when reality changes
A stage should reflect what has actually happened, not what you hope will happen. Drag the deal to the next stage right after the call or the reply — not at the end of the week. Ikigai helps you notice drift:
- Every card shows a "{days}d in stage" counter (hover it to see "Days in current stage").
- A deal that sits too long gets a "Stuck in stage" indicator.
- A deal with no recent real contact (email, message, call, note, meeting) is marked "dormant".
Moved a card by mistake? Use "Undo" in the confirmation toast.
Every open deal needs a next step
An open deal without a planned action is a deal nobody owns. The card surfaces this: it shows the planned touch date and the task chip — "No task" means the next move is undefined. Add a task or plan a touch directly from the deal card before you move on.
Review and close stale deals weekly
- Open the board and press "Filters" — the "Search and filters" drawer opens.
- Filter by "Date updated" (or switch the table to sort "By date updated").
- Turn on "My deals" to see only your own queue.
- Save the setup with "Save as view" — next week the review is one click.
If a deal is dead, close it as lost honestly. Parking it in a middle stage "just in case" only inflates your pipeline.
Why won/lost accuracy matters
The Reports section — "Sales funnel", "Win / Loss", "Time in stage", "Velocity" — reads outcomes straight from the board. Wrong or missing outcomes mean wrong conversion rates and a forecast nobody can trust. Closed stages are hidden on the board by default; use "Show closed stages" to check them. You can also close a deal straight from its open card via the command palette — it offers actions to mark the deal as won or lost (with the target stage shown right in the action).
Tip: block 15 minutes every Friday, open your saved review view, and start from the deals with the oldest "Date updated". Ten honest decisions a week keep the whole board trustworthy.
Clean stages work best on clean records — see Clean data: one client, one card and the other guides in Best practices.
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