A daily walk has long been an important part of my workday. Like taking a shower, the lack of screen-based distractions helps my mind process things and come up with ideas.
Cal Newport once said: “Nature has a way of filling your senses without demanding your attention which, when combined with the act of walking, behaves like a performance enhancing drug for deep work.”
But one issue I’ve always had while walking is capturing the flood of ideas. I’d get back to my desk only to realise I’d forgotten most of what I thought about. I’d try clumsily typing a sentence or two on my phone, but it never really captured the idea, and I didn’t want to be staring at a screen anyway. A notebook wasn’t much better, since that meant stopping to write.
Earlier in the year, I tried out a new note-taking app called Reflect. There were lots of things I liked about it, but I eventually returned to my beloved Obsidian. One feature I did love in Reflect, though, was the built-in dictation. I’d never really used dictation before but I found it to be accurate and surprisingly useful, so when I ditched the app, I started looking around for an alternative.
I then tried out a bunch of dictation apps to find one that suited my needs. Most of the newer ones connect to third-party AI services, but I was after something on-device. Reflect’s dictation, for example, uses AI to remove ums and ahs but it also rephrases what you say. That’s not really what I’m after. I want my dictation tool to capture what I say verbatim. It’s up to me to improve it later. I’m just capturing ideas, not writing finished pieces.
After downloading and testing half a dozen apps, I realised Apple’s own Voice Memos app had a built-in dictation feature (looks like this was just added in iOS 18). It’s not perfect, but it does on-device transcription and is good enough for what I need. Even better, it syncs to the Mac app, so I can pull up the transcription on my Mac, which is where I do all my writing.
Now, when I’m out walking, I use a Shortcut to start a Voice Memos recording. You can also trigger it with Siri. I just say what I’m thinking through my AirPods and end the recording. It’s a much quicker and easier way to capture ideas than trying to type them out.
Another app I came across that’s worth a mention is Whisper. It’s free (with a paid upgrade) and lets you download an on-device model, so your notes are transcribed privately. You can also connect it to services like OpenAI, but that’s optional. I’ve found Whisper’s transcriptions to be more accurate than Voice Memos.
I soon realised it was useful to dictate things at my desk too. I spend most of my day writing: emails, blog posts, website copy, proposals, discovery documents, and so on. And often, when I’m staring at a blank page and just want to get some ideas down, dictation is a great way to get started.
That’s when I found MacWhisper, and it’s fantastic. It’s a paid app, but it supports local transcription models (I’m using Parakeet v2). I’ve set up a hotkey so I can press the right Cmd key to start talking and press it again to stop. I pair it with my AirPods and pace around the home office, dictating thoughts, ideas, blog posts, or whatever I’m working on.
I know I’m late to the game here — folks like David Sparks have been talking about dictation for years — but I always thought it wasn’t for me. Until now. It’s probably been the biggest change I’ve made to how I work this year.