How I wrote this 1000 word blog post, using speech-to-text on my smartphone, and in under an hour.
And it was easier and more fulfilling than I thought it would be!
I recently witnessed a friend of mine, while driving, use his speech-to-text functionality on this smartphone to compose a lengthy wall-of-text SMS reply to his friend in 45-ish seconds. It actually blew my mind.
I immediately yanked it out of the car phone holder thingy after he sent it out so I can have a quick glance on how well it actually wrote. With really low expectations, I found it was actually amazingly precise and accurate. I honestly didn’t know that speech-to-text tech has gotten so good because I’ve never really had a use case for it.
And it had to be at least 100 words, because the text got split into several messages, because well… SMS technology is ancient and likely pre-dates dinosaurs.
But it got me thinking, can I use this wizardry to write quality blog posts or any other content, and in high speed, like this dude just did?
So I set out to try, and this post is the first result with this experimental technique!
I made myself 3 basic rules that I absolutely had to follow:
1. The bulk of the text had to be written by voice-to-text and not my actual fingers. Any modern smartphone has this built-in and standard.
2. The entire post had to be done on my smartphone. Android has a great built-in notes app that helped me a lot. I’m sure iPhone does too.
3. Once all the text was 100% ready, only then can I move it over to my primary PC, so I can properly use a big screen to create and publish the post, adding SEO keywords, images, links, etc.
The following is a breakdown of the key elements of a standard blog post, with the allotted time I set for each part, along with the actual time it took me.
1. Initial plan: Jot down the primary talking points (AKA the “meat” of the post) in point form and in proper order/structure (10 min allotted, 11 min spent)
2. Intro: Self-explanatory, rough draft (5 min allotted, 5 min spent)
3. Main part: Use the initial plan notes and talking points, rough draft (15 min allotted, 14 min spent)
4. Conclusion: Self-explanatory, rough draft (5 min allotted, 8 min spent)
5. Final Editing: Read over it once fully, make any final structural, grammar or spelling corrections on the fly (15 min allotted, 11 min spent)
6. Title: Saved for last so it’s easier to do (5 min, 3 min spent)
7. Misc: This includes all the other minor things such as keywords, links, images, or anything else (5 min allotted, 6 min spent)
I kept it quite simple, and using the above approach, this post took exactly 58 minutes for the entire process! Not to just get to this point, but for the whole thing! This means writing, editing, and publishing from complete scratch.
So I met the goal. And yes I timed it. For science.
Let’s just say it was a very focused and tense hour, which honestly felt like 20 minutes, but I got the job done and this post is the result.
I will be the first to admit, the first time I tried this was a little weird because I’m so used to typing long-form content with my fingers on a keyboard. And I don’t even want to get into the awkwardness of talking to my phone for nearly an hour with no one connected on the other side.
But it was my first try. I’m sure for my next blog post the process will be even smoother and more streamlined based on the experience I’ve gained.
…
Even though it doesn’t feel like it in real time, technology has gone a looooong way in the past decade. Particularly in the productivity and voice recognition technology space.
With all the hype around these AI writers like Jarvis, people obviously want speed to get their written tasks done quicker.
After all, it’s the survival of the fittest, isn’t it? Time you save doing one must-do thing can be used to do other must-do things that are also very much required in your growth efforts. Such as sharing and promoting your articles so they can actually be found and read.
But I feel like AI writing content for you is not the solution. Maybe not just yet. Maybe never. I don’t know.
For me at least, the real nex-gen solution is to actually still manually write the content, but in a new time-saving fashion with the help of more modern tools never before available to humanity. If you want to compete, you gotta adapt, or die.
The average person can type 40 words per minute. I tested my voice writing speed and I can easily reach 200 words per minute this way, and almost all of it spelled perfectly. That’s 5X the speed!
Sure, I had a few very minor issues with grammar and the use of wrong words, but that was expected, and that’s what the final editing process is for!
And this is coming from someone who sees themself as somewhat of a perfectionist who used to spend north of 15 hours to write 1000 word articles that ended up getting south of 100 total readers. For the lifetime of the article! It can be tough out there.
But using this strategy, there’s no excuse you can’t pump out at least one decent post per day with ease. And honestly, if you can’t find one hour a day then you shouldn’t even be reading this!
In my next attempt, and using my newly found experience, I will try to shave off 5 minutes off the process, and rinse/repeat until I can reach 45 minutes per blog post.
I’ll keep ya’ll posted!
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