The Information Check-In Routine
Every morning, millions of PC users perform the exact same routine. They open their web browser, type in a weather website to see if it will rain, open a financial site to check their retirement stocks, and navigate to a news aggregator to read the morning headlines. This process consumes five minutes and requires opening multiple distracting browser tabs.
Microsoft built a feature directly into Windows 11 designed to completely eliminate this routine. It is called the Widgets Board. It acts as a customisable, slide-out dashboard that overlays your desktop, presenting you with bite-sized, live-updating cards containing the exact information you care about. One glance, one click, and you are done.
Accessing the Widgets Board
There are three ways to open the board:
- The Taskbar: Look at the far left side of your Windows 11 taskbar (where the Start button used to be in older versions of Windows). You will see an icon displaying the current weather condition (e.g., a small sun icon with the text “72°”). Click it.
- Keyboard Shortcut: Press the Windows Key + W on your keyboard.
- Touchscreen: If you are using a tablet or touchscreen laptop, swipe in from the left edge of the screen.
A massive panel will instantly slide out from the left, partially covering your desktop. This is the Widgets Board.
Customising Your Widgets
By default, Microsoft populates the board with a mix of weather, stocks, and a massive feed of news articles. To make the board actually useful, you must aggressively customize it to your interests.
Adding New Widgets
- Open the Widgets Board.
- Look near the top right of the panel and click the “+” (Add widgets) icon.
- A menu will appear listing all available widgets. This includes first-party options like To Do, Outlook Calendar, and Traffic, as well as third-party widgets if you have supported apps installed (like Spotify or Facebook Messenger).
- Click the “+” next to any widget you want (e.g., Calendar). It will immediately appear on your board.
Pinning and Resizing
You want your most important information at the very top so you do not have to scroll.
- Find a widget you care about (e.g., Weather).
- Click the three-dot menu (…) in the top-right corner of that specific widget.
- Select Pin widget. This locks it to the top section of the board.
- Click the menu again and select a size: Small, Medium, or Large. A large weather widget shows a 5-day forecast, while a small one only shows the current temperature.
Removing the Clutter
If you do not care about the stock market, having the Watchlist widget is just visual clutter.
- Click the three-dot menu (…) on the unwanted widget.
- Select Hide this widget (or Unpin).
Managing the News Feed
Below your pinned widgets is an endless scrolling feed of news articles powered by Microsoft Start. By default, it is a chaotic mix of global politics, celebrity gossip, and sports.
To train the algorithm:
- Hover over a news article you dislike.
- Click the “X” (Hide this story) button.
- A prompt will ask why. You can select “Not interested in this story” or entirely block the publisher (e.g., “Hide stories from The Tabloid”).
Conversely, if you see an article about technology that you like, click the three-dot menu and select More stories like this. Over a few days of training, the news feed will transform from a generic aggregator into a highly curated newspaper tailored exactly to your professional and personal interests.
Stop wasting time navigating to five different websites every morning. By spending five minutes customizing the Windows 11 Widgets Board, you create a personalized, instant-access dashboard that provides all the daily information you need with a single press of a keyboard shortcut.