Happy Friday!

Ideas on the run

Have you ever had a really great idea, but you didn’t have anything to write it down on? And you held on, and held on, and held on—desperately—but when you finally sat down to write it out, you couldn’t form the words?

Or, for that matter, let's ignore the “didn’t have anything to write on” part. I’ve had times where so many ideas were flying around in my mind that I couldn’t write any of them down even if I had something to write on. I simply didn’t know where to start.

Sometimes our brains work faster than our fingers can type. There are so many possibilities—this idea is great, but it relies on that idea, but that one is dependent on another one—and by the time we’ve picked one to write first, the rest are in disarray and we can’t get them down.

We lose the thread of ideas. And that’s that—they're gone.

Narrative Dictation

When my brain is going too fast for my fingers to type, or when typing would be cumbersome because I only have my phone or watch, I use a tool called Narrative Dictation.

Narrative Dictation is dictating what’s flying around in your head to an app on your watch, phone, or other device. Note the distinction between dictating and recording: dictating is creating written text by speaking, not creating an audio-only file to listen to later.

You can use a dedicated transcription app like Otter (which captures the audio, too, should you ever need it). I use an app called Drafts paired with Apple’s native Siri transcription, because it makes even my Apple Watch a quick Narrative Dictation tool. On Apple devices, any text app should work fine with Siri transcription. (I’m not up to speed on Android dictation tools, but Otter is a good place to start.)

Here's how Narrative Dictation works: Open your transcription app and start talking. That's it! Don’t worry about sequence, don’t worry about clarity. Don’t even worry about punctuation unless you really want to.

Your goal is to capture everything you can, not to make sense or organize the ideas. That’s part of the reason a flurry of ideas is hard to capture with your fingers: writing demands some structure—or, at least, implies a demand for structure—and so you get hung up deciding what to write first. But with speech, you can scattershot ideas to your heart’s content.

💡Write like you talk, and as you talk💡

👆 That’s your weekend upgrade.

If your final product is writing, using Narrative Dictation has another benefit. Writing teachers encourage you to write like you talk. It makes your writing authentic and conversational, which is pleasant to read and easy to understand. When a draft starts as Narrative Dictation, that natural flow persists even through multiple revisions. Writing as you talk helps you write like you talk.

But even when your final product isn't writing—maybe it's a physical object or a new landscape for your front yard—Narrative Dictation can help you capture ideas from their first flurry.

When is dictation most useful?

Narrative Dictation works best for longer, chaotic ideas—ones where a simple five word reminder will not suffice. Simple reminders can be easily typed. It's the complex or cluttered ideas that require you to open your transcription app and jabber away.

There are two points in the creative development process where Narrative Dictation is particularly powerful. Both points require you to choose a place to start when it’s not obvious where we should start—prime times for our brains to fly faster than our fingers.

I have a tool called BOMR that I use to stay in the right mindset for different stages of work. It stands for Brainstorm, Organize, Make, and Refine. The Brainstorm and Make phases often benefit greatly from using Narrative Dictation.

When you’re Brainstorming, everything is a possibility and ideas are so chaotic that typing them can be daunting. With Narrative Dictation, you can be a chatterbox and capture every fleeting thought without waiting for your pen or keyboard to keep up.

The Make phase marks the transition from Pre-Production into Production, from planning to prototyping. In theory, it should be easy to Make something you’ve been planning to make. But in reality, it’s rarely clear when to stop planning and start building. Narrative Dictation can help us knock out a draft, or a quick first task list, which smooths that transition.

How can Tools for Thought help?

If you’re new to the Weekend Upgrade newsletter, I explore how processes can be created in Tools for Thought (TfTs). TfTs are apps optimized for linking your ideas, thoughts, notes, etc.—apps like Tana, Amplenote, Roam Research, Logseq, and Obsidian.

Earlier, I mentioned apps like Drafts or Otter are great for capturing a flurry of ideas that can later transfer into a TfT. Depending on your tech setup, you can also dictate directly into your TfTs. Regardless this first step—whether it occurs inside or outside your Tool for Thought—where your TfT really shines is in the steps after Narrative Dictation.

Your Tool for Thought helps you further develop your ideas, make sense of them, reorganize them, refine them, and generally make better choices with your text or process. Linear tools like word processors make reordering and recombining ideas clumsy, but TfTs make it easy and enjoyable.

We have a tendency to edit ourselves when we write, even without meaning to. That's bad when we're trying to capture ephemeral ideas, but it's useful when we’re improving our initial draft. Use Narrative Dictation for the first chaotic pass at your ideas, and then reorganize and refine them in your TfT, and you'll be surprised how much your work improves—and how much more you accomplish overall!

What do I do next?

(1) Take 2 minutes and answer this question: What’s one thing I learned in this newsletter that I can put into practice right away?

By committing to a specific action, you make it much more likely you’ll do it.

(2) Explore Otter, Drafts, or another notes app you can dictate into. When you find one you like, learn how to quickly dictate a transcription.

That way, the next time you’re adrift in a flurry of great ideas, you’ll be equipped with Narrative Dictation!

If this was valuable for you:

Share the newsletter with someone you think would also get value from it! https://rjn.st/weekend-upgrade-newsletters​

Until next time, friends:

They say "talk is cheap," but it's valuable when it captures our ideas!

R.J.
​rjn.st/links​

P.S. Cohort Six of my course AP Productivity launches today. Sign up before 1 p.m. US Eastern time and join us at the orientation Zoom call. There are only 10 slots left—because if you sign up, you can bypass the waitlist for the exciting new Tool for Thought Tana. Invites are limited! (I released this newsletter a few hours earlier than usual to give you time to sign up if you want!)