I hope you all had a great Christmas or holiday season and are gearing up for an exciting new year. We’ve had a great time with family.
Soon we’ll be flying south for 2 weeks of holidays with more family and friends.
Normally when I travel, I take my notebook computer. But, I’m a minimalist (especially when travelling), and even a notebook seems too bulky for me. Unfortunately mobile devices aren’t the fastest to type on, so I reluctantly resort to taking my notebook when I travel. However, I’ve decided to try something new this holiday season.
Mobile Pro Blogging
If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you’ll know I’m all about being mobile. I like the feeling of freedom. After all, pro blogging and running an online business is all about the lifestyle.
Knowing my quest for being mobile and a minimalist, my wife purchased a new Android phone for me, as a Christmas gift (I usually use Apple devices). The phone came with a built in “voice to text” app, so I decided to give it a shot.
I was impressed!
So impressed actually, that I decided to dictate this entire blog post (well, 96% of it).
In fact, I’ve started doing all of my emails and text messaging by voice.
I’ve also added a new voice to text app to my phone, that’s even more accurate and over time learns my speech patterns for better performance.
This got me thinking. Technology is moving at such a fast pace that it really gives us small business owners a big advantage. For example, if you publish membership sites or any online content (and all of us should be producing online content), then anything that speeds up the product creation process is invaluable. Not only will it give us more time, (and we all know that time is our most valuable asset), but it can also speed up our cash flow.
Voice to text apps speed up typing by at least 5 times. This means you can create books, articles, blog posts a lot faster. Faster production times means faster to launch, more content and more virtual real estate.
So for this trip all I’m taking is my Android phone to run my business and do some mobile blogging.
It’s all about work flow and systems
I’m a big fan of setting up correct work flows and systems to run your business.
It allows you to make your business scaleable and outsourceable.
Voice to text is now becoming a part of my work flow. Not only that, but studies have found that you think better and clearer when moving around. A lot more of my posts will be done while walking around, away from my computer (it’s good exercise too… 
.
My voice to text work flow
So here’s my process.
1. Short bursts of information: Instead of trying to do long sections at a time I use short paragraphs and sentiences at a time. This allows me to think, because speaking is faster than typing – and I need time to gather my thoughts in-between.
2. I don’t worry about mistakes: My goal is to get the information downing quickly. I don’t want to break the creation process. I don’t worry about correcting mistakes, I just keep going. Tweaking and correcting is left for the next step. Research has shown that when you get content down quickly the creation process is even more effective. Even if you start off saying just about anything. It’s like warming up the engines and it gets the creative juices flowing.
3. Clean it up: Once I’ve dictated all of my ideas I then go back and tweak all of the content on the keyboard. I’ll restructure a few things, add formatting and correct any punctuation.
That’s it in a nutshell.
I remember years ago when I wrote one of my books and I used a similar method. I recorded my voice and interviews and then had an outsourcer transcribe it for me. The results were outstanding. The entire book was written within 2 weeks and became a top seller.
Tools
The app I use is called: FlexT9
It’s from the same developers who created the desktop dictation software called “Dragon Naturally Speaking.”
I dictated part of this post directly into WordPress and the rest of it was done into an email and then pasted here.
My next post will be on the road as I travel around. It will be another voice dictated blog post
All I can say is this sure beats typing.
I’d like to wish all of you a happy and exciting new year!
Great tip Ansel, I’ll have to check that out. While I don’t currently Blog, it is on my todo list for the new year as I feel my experiences of clearing Heartwalls and helping people rid themselves of old emotional baggage will provide interesting reading. Ideas of what to write often pop into my head when I’m away from my computer and this sounds like it would be perfect! Thanks.
linda
http://www.thebodycodetohealth.com
Thanks Linda.
I’ve found the same thing. I get a lot of ideas when I’m away from my computer. I’m finding this the best method for recording ideas.
I’m also enjoying sitting out on my patio and dictating. I like to work on outside, but taking the notebook computer out with me always seems like a hassle. But the voice-to-text is really changing all of that.
I’m also enjoying being away from my computer, but keeping up productivity.
Great tip Ansel. Over the years I’ve looked at various ways to either speed up/automate or make easier adding posts to our Nile Cruise Blog. I’ve used Audioboo to add audio posts but I still think most people prefer text posts so I’m going to give FlexT9 a try.
I try and add posts when I’m travelling in Egypt and this just might my life a whole lot easier.
Colin
Thanks Colin.
In general people do prefer text. Also, the search engines require text for rankings.
Let us know how it works out for you on your trip to Egypt.
Ansel
Hi Ansel,
Your short email sort of resonated with me concerning the traveling and using minimal tools to keep working on the business. I normally have always used my laptop on trips but I think I’m going to try something new. I just got an I Pad2 and found a neat cover/case from zagg.com that includes a wireless keyboard. I think I can do most of what I want to do from this platform as well as keep up on my reading of books, etc (which is why I got the I Pad in the first place). Anyway, maybe this will help you lighten the load even further.
All the best,
Mark
PS: By the way, I tried the Dragon on the IPad and it worked pretty good too…definitely a workable option to typing.
Thanks Mark.
I’ll check out the case for the iPad.
Ansel
Thanks for the great post…I have a text to speech software that came with my Toshiba Laptop and I just used it last month for the first time to create a Tutorial that I was putting together and I must say it was soo awesome! Will definately be checking into a text to speech for my Ipad which I am using more and more on the go.
Regarding the Ipad Cover I received a Keyboard cover for Christmas with a wireless kepboard built in and I LOVE it! They are upwards of $100 at a store but can be purchased online for around $40 which is how my son said he got mine, a friend has the $100 one and there is no difference between hers and mine.
Jody