I’m driving and I have a great idea that will really help the business.

I see a truck that belongs to a company that seems to be the perfect potential customer.

There is a sign on a building & I think that I must check this out.

Listening to the BBC, I want to check out the website of the program to learn more.

I speak to someone on my phone and need to remember the appointment I just made.

etc…etc.

Maybe you have a great memory and can remember all these things. I confess, I can’t! While I’m driving, there are ideas going through my head the whole time and every now and again, some are actually worth remembering.

So how can I do this? One thing I learned years ago is that taking notes and driving isn’t a great idea. Obviously this is an opportunity for technology to help.

I’ve tried several ways to do this in the past – including those little dictation tape recorders and, more recently, recorders in my phone that will grab a thought and send to me as an email attachment. I still use one of these from time to time, Note2Self from Alex at WebIS.

The problem with having an audio recording is that the information is not in a format I can really import into my calendar or my task management system – more work is needed to transpose this when I get time.

Being a 21st Century guy, I’ve wanted something better and more convenient, so I’m currently using two voice transcription systems that will take my speech and enter it as text into applications I use.

The reason I use two is that neither works 100% and I’ve been trying to decide for months which is the closest to what I need. I still have not decided.

One of these is Jott.

Jott comes in two versions (actually more than two, but I don’t use some of the newer things they’ve come out with) one of which is free, the other has a monthly subscription fee. The free one allows you to enter information into quite a few applications, but not Toodledo which is my task management system. I’m therefore a paid subscriber.

Currently I use Jott to enter tasks into Toodledo, appointments into Google Calendar, Tweets into Twitter and I can also update my Facebook status. The program has a lot more possibilities, but my needs are pretty baseic.

It works by dialing the access number and saying the name of the service and what the message is. For example, I could call Jott and at the prompt say “Google Calendar” then “Dinner with Caren at Georgio’s next Tuesday at 8.00 PM.”

In just a few minutes, tha appointment is in Google Calendar, then my iPhone and Outlook because of the sync I have set up.

Dial2Do is remarkably similar, except it is free. I also use Dial2Do to send text messages to people in my contact list.

I don’t know why, but some days these two systems work better than other days. Sometimes Jott will be more accurate, other times Dial2Do will be. This is why I am still messing with both of them.

Obviously the accuracy of the transcription is the crucial thing and I’d say they both work about 75% for me. This is fine if I want to capture a thought in Toodledo. There is usually enough that makes sense for me to remember what the note is about. Updating Twitter or Facebook is interesting, because I never quite know what is going to be typed – makes it an adventure, but is also rather annoying when the system gets it way wrong. Maybe these products are optimized for American accents and they don’t like my Queen’s English.

I’m hoping that as these systems (and others that might appear) improve, the voice recognition will get better. It still beats trying to remember all these jumbled thoughts and ideas in my over extended memory.

How do you capture thoughts when you can’t write them down? Is there something better that I’ve missed?

Related posts:

1. How I stay in sync
2. Appigo – Todo iPhone App
3. Voyager Pro – Bluetooth Headset

As a 21st Century guy, I’m able to keep everything reasonably under control, using some of the tools that are available today.

The one constant thing is my phone – I use the Apple iPhone, which I have with me just about all the time. I also have to report that Google (which seems to be taking over just about everything) has a big part to play in keeping everything working.

There are really three devices that I need to keep in sync. The phone, my PC at home and my PC at the office. Here is how it all works:

Dates and appointments. This area is controlled by Google Calendar. I use Google Calendar Sync to sync Outlook on my home PC to Google. I then use NuevaSync to Sync Google Calendar to the built in iPhone calendar app. This means that I have access to my calendar information even when I don’t have Internet access on my phone. I don’t have the ability to sync to the Outlook calendar at Winco so I only use office Outlook for email.

Email. I have 3 main email accounts. Winco mail, wedding business mail and a general Gmail account. All 3 are synced to both my iPhone and home PC. The office PC isn’t so helpful since I can only access Winco mail there (of course I can also get to Gmail via the website), but no problem since I always have my iPhone when I am there.

Contacts. Synced between the iPhone and Gmail contacts using NuevaSync.

Tasks/To-Do’s. To keep all my tasks and projects under control I use the great Toodledo service. This a basically a website to keep track of all these things (great if you use David Allen’s GTD techniques) and also has an iPhone app that automatically syncs with the on-line version. This means I have access to all my task and project information even when there is no web access around.

Notes. The Toodledo website service includes a basic, but useful Notes section. A third party developer, Appigo makes a really nice Notes application for iPhone that syncs perfectly with Toodledo.

Documents. For colaborating on documents with the rest of the marketing team, I use Google Docs. (see a bit of a Google trend going on here?)

Jott.com. Jott is the final part of my sync strategy. Signing up for the Jott service, lets me call in to the service to make make note of appointments, add to my to-do list, send a text message or update my Twitter or FaceBook status. It is a great way to capture thoughts and ideas while driving, anyone who has attempted to type on the iPhone while trying to stear knows what I mean!)

Calling Jott and telling it about an appointment and having it appear in Google Calendar, iPhone Calendar and Outlook a few minutes later is just really 21st Century.

These days we all have to try and get more done in less time – I’d really suggest you check out some of these services. Also let me know if you have a better way. I’m always wanting to get better!

One final thing; since I set up my system, Google has come up with some additional sync solutions that replicate some of the functionality of NuevaSync. Because my NuevaSync has worked really well for me, I have not felt the need to change.

Related posts:

1. Notes while on the road
2. Appigo – Todo iPhone App
3. iPhone 3.0