Hey :) 

I'm writing this while driving. Well, not writing — dictating. Into an app called VoicePal, which is recording everything I'm saying and will give me a clean transcript when I'm done. I'll take that transcript, drop it into Claude with the right prompt, and it'll help me shape it into something worth posting. That's the process. That's what I want to talk about.

For the past couple of years, ever since AI tools became genuinely useful, I've been leaning harder and harder into speech-to-text. Not just for big things — for everything. Emails, WhatsApp messages, notes to myself, prompts into Claude. If there's a text box somewhere on my screen, there's a good chance I'm talking into it rather than typing. The only time I'm typing is for a single line or a quick reply where pulling up the tool would take longer than just typing.

Last week I dictated over 35,000 words across different applications. That number surprised even me when I added it up.

There are two I want to highlight.

The first is VoicePal. It's a ghostwriting app — macOS and iPhone — where you can record your thoughts for up to ninety minutes without interruption. No AI cutting you off mid-sentence because you paused. That was my biggest frustration with early ChatGPT voice: the moment you paused, it assumed you were done and ran with whatever you'd said so far. I need a tool that waits for me. VoicePal does that. It also has an interview feature where it asks you follow-up questions to help you develop your thinking, which is genuinely useful for getting past surface-level ideas.

The second is WisperFlow. This one is a bit different — it's less about long-form dictation and more about replacing typing entirely in your day-to-day workflow. On Mac, you hold down the function key, speak, and whatever you say goes straight into whichever app you're using. Any app. Email client, Slack, Claude, a notes app — it doesn't matter. And it's smart about it. It tidies up what you actually said into what you meant to say, and you can train it with your own vocabulary and shortcuts. I've set it up so that when I say "LinkedIn," it drops in my full LinkedIn URL. And it's lightening fast! 

Between these two tools, I've essentially removed the friction between having a thought and getting it out of my head.

When I mentioned this to my wife Cara, she immediately said it wouldn't work for her. She's audio dyslexic — she needs to write to think. That's a real thing and I'm not dismissing it. Different people process differently.

But for a lot of people — I'd guess most people reading this — the resistance isn't neurological. It's cultural. There's a feeling that if you're using AI to help shape your writing, you're somehow cheating. That real writing means sitting down, typing every word yourself, and suffering through the process.

I'd push back on that pretty hard.

If you go to an AI tool and say "write me an article about X," yes, you're going to get something generic and lifeless. Of course you are. But that's not what I'm doing. I'm dictating forty-five minutes of actual thinking — my opinions, my experiences, my specific way of seeing something — and then using AI to help me organise it into something readable. The thinking is mine. The structure is assisted. I'm still the one reviewing it and deciding what goes live.

How is that different from having a secretary?

Churchill dictated his speeches wandering around in his bathrobe. Epictetus never wrote a single word — his entire body of work was captured by someone else based on his lectures. For thousands of years, people who had important things to say dictated those things to people who were better at writing them down. That wasn't considered cheating. It was just how things got done.

The tools and methods have changed. The basic idea hasn't.

The thing that's shifted for me isn't just speed — though the speed is real. I can speak faster than I can type, and you can read faster than you can listen to me speak, which means dictation is actually the most efficient path from my brain to yours.

What's really shifted is that I'm getting ideas out that would have otherwise stayed stuck in my head. The gap between "I should write something about this" and actually publishing something was mostly friction — the effort of sitting down, opening a blank document, and staring at it. Dictating while I drive, or walk, or make coffee, removes that friction almost entirely.

If you've got a similar backlog of ideas that never seem to make it out, it might be worth trying. Especially if you're someone who's dyslexic and finds typing slow and arduous. The barrier between what's in your head and getting it published shouldn't be that high.

Try VoicePal if you want to think through longer ideas without interruption. Try WisperFlow if you want to replace typing in your everyday workflow. And don't let anyone make you feel like using them is a shortcut. You are using good tools to do your best work.

🗣️ 👀

Chris.

PS. About the links in this article: At the time of writing, VoicePal and WisperFlow offer a referral program, which means that if you click through from a link in this article, and you become a customer, I may personally benefit in some small way either through a small payment, or a period of free use. Go direct here: VoicePal, WisperFlow.