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Productivity Workflow with Voice Recorder

Here’s how my workflow works right now with respect to my voice recorder and getting things into a system that I am willing to maintain and do something about:

  • I have this voice recorder, and I also have a Dragon recorder software on my iPhone and iPad and iPod touch.
  • I download all the voice memos from the recorder and the Dragon Recorder into the Todo folder on my Dropbox account.
  • I start Dragon NaturallySpeaking on my computer, and make sure that one of the microphone profiles is active. (I have found that a remote mic profile works really well, especially when tryiing to transcribe files from a remote computer).
  • I then drag the files - one at a time - from the todo folder to the DragonBar. When I drop them, the DragonPad opens, and begins transcribing the voice memos.
  • I save the files as "filename rough" (ex. 121001_003 rough.txt), and keep the MP3 file, so I can do some post-preocessing, in case the transcription comes out as gibberish.
  • As I am watching the files get transcribed, sometimes I remember the gist of the message, and just add the memo to a growing todo list. Sometimes the memo is just a rambling piece of crap and I delete it at the transcription immediately.
  • I have found that I record two kinds of text messages. One kind is a short thought (less than 30 seconds long), or a longer form spoken thought (3-15 minutes long).
  • Some of text files in the to do folder are actually substantial bits of effort and they deserve a little bit extra time. They are probably not urgent, and are just some thoughts that I'm trying to stick together somehow. It's okay for those to sit in the to do folder for a while until I can process them.
  • Once the transcripts are complete and accurate, I dump the files - one at a time - into Evernote. Evernote will make the text files into text-based notes (there will not be a file attachment, that is).
  • This conversion allows the note contents to be searchable immediately. When a theme becomes apparent, I can search on that theme in Evernote, and it will return the notes that have that description in them.
  • To sum up, that's how my thoughts get from my brain into either a todo list (for more immediate attention) or into Evernote (for curation or curing or marination or rumination - they need to sit in the dark for a while... hahaha). It goes like this: Brain to Voice. Voice to Voice Recorder. Voice Memo to Dragon. Dragon to Transcript. Transcript to Todo or Evernote.</ul> note: One of a series of attempts to reduce friction getting ideas onto paper so they can be edited and enacted.