Beyond Voice Transciption: The Argument for Conversation

Stop Typing, Start Talking ✍️ ➡️ 🗣️ ➡️ 💬

I've been thinking a lot about how we create. You know, as content creators, writers, thinkers, knowledge workers – anyone who puts ideas out into the world. It feels like the biggest hurdle isn’t the lack of ideas, but the process of writing itself. Does that resonate with you? Especially when you're staring at a blank page, or a blinking cursor... 🙈

I've been on a bit of a journey figuring out how I work best. It's been interesting to discover what helps me feel more creative and less… stuck. Anyway, I wanted to share something I’ve been experimenting with that’s been surprisingly helpful for me.

I went from voice dictation to conversation-based creation.

⚠️ Problem 1 - Writing is no good

Something I've been realising is that Traditional writing can be a real creativity killer. Think about it. We sit down, ready to pour our brilliant thoughts onto the page, but then… the inner editor kicks in. Suddenly, every sentence needs to be perfect, every word precisely chosen. We get stuck in this loop of overthinking, revising, and refining before we've even really gotten the idea out. It's like trying to sculpt something intricate before you've even got a lump of clay on the wheel! 🙈

Or even worse, I try to get out all my notebook tools and put it in the correct place, and I forget what the idea was about.

This approach, aiming for polish right away, can highlight a real challenge: it can really dampen that initial burst of creativity. When we're so focused on perfection from the get-go, we can lose the raw, exciting energy of the initial idea. And honestly, for me, that's where the magic often is – in those initial bursts of thought. The direct consequences of this?

• 🐌 Slowed Down Creation: Projects take forever. What could be a quick blog post turns into a week-long saga.

• 😫 Creative Block: The fear of not being "perfect" can stop us from even starting. Blank page paralysis is real.

• 😒 Less Authentic Voice: Over-editing can smooth out all the interesting quirks and personality from our writing.

If you've ever read the book "The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle" by Seven Pressfield, despite the title, this book is not actually about art. It is about how you can overcome resistance, this terrible inner force that blocks creativity, and ruins your life.

It’s a little dramatic but here is a quote I like:

✅ Solution 1 - Replace your keyboard

So what I did, was switching to voice dictation, which was a lot faster and really allowed me to capture a lot more context onto the page. It also took away the inability to express myself because facing a microphone. I will try to say something even if I'm not sure I'm ready and that is really the most important part of dictation.

I also explored trying to write as in draw and doodle in Notability, and then talk to myself at the same time later, taking that transcript, so I can match up the pictures towards and that was also another way of getting content to come out of my head and overcoming the resistance of my inner critic.

Why is talking so much better? Honestly, for me, it's been a game-changer. The benefits are huge:

• ⚡️ Speed & Efficiency: Voice is just faster than typing for getting initial thoughts out.

• 😌 Reduced Self-Criticism: It's harder to over-edit when you're just talking. It feels less "formal" and more like brainstorming.

• 💡 Uncovers Hidden Gems: Sometimes, in the flow of talking, you stumble upon ideas you wouldn't have consciously thought of while carefully typing.

• 📚 More "Me" in My Writing: My natural speaking voice comes through, making my writing feel more authentic and relatable.

About Voice dictation options

My previous post looked at using voice dictation (speaking into your iPhone and getting the speech scribed to text for you), I found that that was a huge game changer, but now I found something even better.

Updates on the voice transcription apps:

• I still think VoicePal is very good if you just want convenience and don't mind expensive subscriptions. Especially if you use your phone a lot.

• For people who don't want to pay a thing, Apple dictation is very good. You can assign a hotkey on the mac, and if you have an apple watch, get a Drafts complication.

• For those avoiding subscriptions, if you mostly work on your computer, MacWhisper has a lifetime purchase option, and allows us to use more accurate voice models. I bought it to support the dev and also because it has a bunch of other transcription features.

⚠️ Problem 2 - It is just you talking

But here's the thing: just talking to yourself can only get you so far. Sometimes you end up in your own echo chamber. You're just rehashing your own thoughts, going down familiar rabbit holes. That's where conversational prompts come in. Think of it like this:

• ❓ Problem: Solo monologues can be limiting. You need perspective outside your own head.

• ✅ Solution: Use AI like VoicePal to give you prompts and respond to your ideas. It's like having a sounding board that doesn't just agree with everything you say.

Why is this important?

• 👀 Fresh Angles: AI can ask questions you wouldn't think of yourself, pushing you to explore different perspectives.

• 🐥 Avoid Rabbit Holes: AI can help you stay on track, preventing you from spiralling into irrelevant tangents. It's like a focus buddy.

• 💡 Clarify Your Thinking: Explaining your ideas to AI, and seeing its responses, forces you to articulate things more clearly. It's like teaching someone else, which solidifies your own understanding.

• 🗣️ Talk it Out: Forcing yourself to explain your ideas to something outside of yourself, helps you to organise your thoughts in a way that is actually coherent to other people. Remember you're not writing for current you, who knows all this context already, you're writing for future you, who will forget all this.

Example 👀

Imagine you want to create a social media post about a book you just loved. In the past, I might sit down, try to write the perfect title, go look at references for other book review post format, worry if it sounds too salesy, not engaging enough… Time goes by, and I might end up just feeling discouraged with a half-completed project and not posting anything at all! Sound familiar?

Now, I might just grab my phone and use Gemini Live. I just talk about the book – what I loved, why it resonated, who might enjoy it. I just speak as if I’m telling a friend about it. By talking to an AI, it gives me a response when I stop and don't know what to say.

End result: I have a rough transcript, full of natural, imperfect sentences in my own words. It’s so much easier to craft a post when you have a lot to edit than to start from a blank box.

How To Try This Out 👇

Okay, so how can we actually do this? Here’s a step-by-step process that’s been working for me:

1. 🗣️ Voice-to-Text is Your Friend: Use voice notes apps on your phone, or voice dictation software on your mac. Good Default: Apple dictation in your Apple Notes app / Drafts.

2. 💬 Talk it Out: Choose your topic, and just start talking. Explain it like you're explaining it to someone who knows nothing about it. Don't worry about structure yet. Just let your thoughts flow.

When you have finished the initial brain dump, you can copy and paste the transcription into AI, or just start working on that.

1. 🤖 Chat with AI: If you want to explore an idea further, have a conversation with a conversational AI like Gemini Live. Ask it questions related to your topic, explain your ideas to it, and see where the conversation takes you.

2. 📝 Review & Refine: Once you have your transcript, then you can start editing and structuring. But now you're working with raw material, not a blank page. It feels so much less daunting! → Also you can get the AI to summarize the points, outline for you etc.

Concept 🚀

Voice-First Creation is about making voice your default mode for idea generation. It's about prioritizing voice as the initial mode of creation, using it to bypass the inner critic and unlock a more spontaneous and efficient way of working.

We want to build a system (choice architecture, remember?) that makes it easier to get those initial thoughts out, instead of relying on willpower to fight the blank page and your inner critic.

Conclusion

This isn't about ditching typing altogether. It's about using voice at the start of the process, where it actually makes a difference. When you are stuck and need to just overcome that resistance.

I'm still experimenting with this, but it's already made a huge difference in my workflow. I'm feeling less stressed about creating more, and trying to use this for journalling too.

Let me know what you think in the comments. 👇💬

Pamela