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July 13, 2007
Jott as a capture tool
I've been playing around with Jott as a mobile capture tool for my GTD system. If you're not familiar with Jott, it's a free voice to text service. This is bound to strike a chord with some of you given how many people raise their hands in my seminars when I ask, "How many of you leave yourself voice mails as reminders of things you need to do?"
Here's the scenario:
I'm driving in my car, which is a place I often do my best thinking. I pick up my Treo and press the shortcut key on the side to activate Voice Dial (I'm using VoiceSignal for Palm).
Phone: "Say a Command"
Me: "Call Jott"
Phone: "Jott...Connecting"
Jott: "Who do you want to Jott?"
Me: "Myself"
Jott: "Jott to self"
Me: "Check iTunes for that Fergie song"
Jott: "Got it"
Hang up and you're done. Usually by the time I get back to my computer, Jott has sent me my voice message as a transcribed text message that I can easily edit, copy and paste into my Action list.
A thing I wish worked a little better is the speed that the messages come back to my email Inbox. There seems to be a delay. I wish that were in a matter of seconds, but sometimes it seems to be up to several hours, at least with my initial testing.
I played around with doing a GTD Mindsweep (random collection of ideas and thoughts) into Jott. I loved it. Each time I paused it assumed I was done and prompted to create a new Jott. Each one came into my Inbox as a separate message.
I was initially thinking it would be great to build some scripts to have Jott messages automatically go to my To Do list if I'm dictating a clear action step, but I sometimes need to correct what Jott transcribes so I'm not going that route yet, but that would be a great addition. Reminds me of the parsing technology Actioneer created a few years ago.
You can also delegate Jott messages to other people. I have spared my husband of that one so far.
Posted by Kelly at July 13, 2007 04:27 PM
Comments
Hi! Does anyone know a similar service that would be available to European users?
Posted by: Florian at July 14, 2007 12:56 PM
Thanks for posting this. I signed up, and noticed what you were talking about. Jott memos come into the Jottbox almost immediately, but haven't yet seen one into my email inbox. Not sure if it's slow or broken.
Posted by: Chris Cerrudo at July 14, 2007 08:50 PM
I Jott to my Remember The Milk account.
Posted by: Mike at July 15, 2007 11:55 AM
I've been using Jott for a while now and found it to be a big help especially when I'm in the car. Talking on the phone is less than ideal when driving but a far cry better than trying to write.
I've also begun using http://iwantsandy.com/ and figured out how to wire the two together. While I don't like having my reminders in two different places, I think there may be some value in there somewhere.
Posted by: David O'Hara at July 16, 2007 06:31 AM
Kelly,
Thank you so much for your post. This tool is great. I tried it out and it works like a charm. Especially helpful for me if I am in the car and can't write anything down (and yes, I am always using a headset).
Posted by: Horst at July 19, 2007 09:01 PM
I Jott to the inbox of my Vitalist account. It works great.
Posted by: Eric at July 20, 2007 09:43 AM
Hi -- I've been using Jott for a while and I love it. I just recently read your GTD and gmail article, and now I am going to revise my contacts on Jott, so that I can use the gmail contacts for GTD and actually leave presorted and filed Jott's for myself!! Your directions for Gmail were great and in conjunction with Jott, it should be a super tool, I just have to remember not to mumble and speak clearly :>))
Posted by: Lynn at September 7, 2007 01:20 PM
Hi Lynn,
Jott can be quite useful to use in combination with Gmail, especially if you are using Gmail as a listmanager. To play around with this, I set up a contact in Gmail called "Actions" which points to my Gmail @Actions folder through a filter on Gmail. So speaking a message like, "Call dentist" and sending it to my Actions contact on Jott, skipped my Inbox and went directly to my Gmail @Actions folder. Pretty cool when the action has already been decided. If it's simply a Mindsweep item, you could have it land in the Inbox, to be processed, or even create a contact and corresponding filter for a @MindSweep folder.
And yes, Jott is not always accurate. Nor do I use it for anything of confidential nature.
Cheers,
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly at September 7, 2007 03:09 PM
I like Jott and I've used it to Twitter and Blog. But sometimes it does get the transcription a little wrong. So I've created Misjott (http://misjott.com). I'm hoping that people will be brave enough to send me their misjotts.
Posted by: Bernard Farrell at September 10, 2007 04:34 PM
I've just started using Jott and I love it. I am usually chained to my desk all day, and when I leave work and am enjoying a change of scenery, that's when - you guessed it - all the good ideas come to me! So I tend to Jott an awful lot of stuff back to my work email on my commute home. The only mistranscriptions I've gotten so far were names that are really close together (like Janet and Jeannette). But honestly, Jott could miss a lot of words and it would still be helpful, since stuff leaves my brain so quickly nowadays.
Posted by: Kimberly at October 12, 2007 10:58 AM
That could be a way for me to collect my thoughts while cycling. I have yet to find a way to collect my thoughts while showering...
Posted by: Bertrand at February 27, 2008 02:15 AM
