Your brain thinks at 400 words per minute. Your fingers type at 50. Close the gap by speaking your ideas into existence.
There is a fundamental mismatch between how fast you think and how fast you can capture those thoughts. Research shows that the average person processes internal thoughts at roughly 400 words per minute, yet typing speed tops out around 50 WPM for most people. That gap is where ideas go to die. You have a brilliant flash of insight, start typing it out, and by the time you have finished the first sentence, the second and third ideas have already evaporated.
Voice dictation changes this equation dramatically. Speaking at 130 to 150 words per minute, you can capture ideas nearly three times faster than typing. With Steno, the process is frictionless: hold a hotkey, speak, release, and your words appear as text wherever your cursor is. No switching apps, no clicking buttons, no waiting for a loading screen. Just thought to text in the most natural way possible.
Brainstorming is inherently a verbal activity. When teams brainstorm together, they talk. When you brainstorm alone, you often talk to yourself, even if just internally. Typing imposes a filter between your thoughts and their capture. You unconsciously start editing as you type, second-guessing word choices, fixing typos, and restructuring sentences. That editorial filter is the enemy of creative ideation.
Speaking bypasses that filter. When you dictate ideas with Steno, you are capturing raw, unedited thought. The messy, associative, sometimes contradictory nature of brainstorming is preserved. You can always organize later. The critical first step is getting everything out of your head and into a document.
1 Open your capture surface
Choose any text application where you want to collect your ideas. Apple Notes, Obsidian, Notion, a plain text file, a Google Doc — Steno works in all of them. Some people prefer a simple blank document to avoid the temptation of organizing too early. Others use an outliner to give loose structure. Pick whatever feels most natural to you.
2 Set your brainstorm topic
Type or dictate a brief anchor at the top of your document. Something like "Ideas for the new onboarding flow" or "Blog post topics for Q2." This primes your thinking and gives you a reference point to return to when your mind wanders. It also helps Steno's transcription by establishing context for the words you are about to speak.
3 Dictate in bursts
Hold the Steno hotkey and speak one idea. Release. Hold again and speak the next idea. This burst pattern creates natural separation between thoughts and makes your brainstorm easier to scan later. Each burst might be a single sentence or a few sentences expanding on one concept. There is no right length; follow the natural rhythm of your thinking.
4 Do not self-edit while speaking
This is the hardest part and the most important. When you catch yourself thinking "wait, that is a bad idea," say it anyway. The goal of brainstorming is volume, not quality. You can filter later. Voice dictation naturally encourages this because speaking feels less permanent than typing. You are not chiseling words into stone; you are thinking out loud.
5 Review and organize
After your brainstorm session (10 to 20 minutes is usually enough), read through everything you captured. Highlight the strongest ideas, group related concepts, and discard what does not resonate. This is where the editorial brain comes back in, but now it has raw material to work with instead of a blank page.
"What if we added a weekly summary email that shows users how much time they saved with voice dictation? People love seeing their own stats."
Output: What if we added a weekly summary email that shows users how much time they saved with voice dictation? People love seeing their own stats.
"I should write a comparison post between Steno and Apple Dictation. The main angle is that Steno works in any app and doesn't require you to enable a system setting. Also the accuracy difference with Groq Whisper."
Output: I should write a comparison post between Steno and Apple Dictation. The main angle is that Steno works in any app and doesn't require you to enable a system setting. Also the accuracy difference with Groq Whisper.
"The onboarding drop-off is happening at the permissions step. Maybe we should show a short video of what the app does before asking for permissions so people understand why they need to grant access."
Output: The onboarding drop-off is happening at the permissions step. Maybe we should show a short video of what the app does before asking for permissions so people understand why they need to grant access.
Use a timer. Set a 10-minute timer and commit to continuous ideation. The time pressure prevents overthinking and pushes you past the obvious ideas to more creative territory. After the timer, take a 5-minute break, then do another round if needed.
Change your physical position. Stand up, pace around, look out a window. Physical movement activates different neural pathways and can unlock ideas that sitting at a desk cannot. Steno works wherever your Mac's microphone can hear you. Read our guide on dictating while walking for more on mobile ideation.
Use verbal markers. Say "new idea" or "tangent" or "follow up on that" between thoughts. These spoken markers become text labels that help you categorize and sort ideas during the review phase.
Brainstorm into existing documents. Instead of starting from scratch, open a document you are already working on and dictate ideas directly into the relevant section. Steno inserts text at your cursor position, so you can place it exactly where it belongs. This technique works well for essay writing and project planning.
A traditional typed brainstorming session of 10 minutes produces roughly 500 words of raw ideas. The same 10 minutes using voice dictation produces 1,300 to 1,500 words. That is not just more words; it is more ideas captured, more connections made, and more creative territory explored.
Many Steno users report that voice brainstorming has become their default thinking tool. Instead of staring at a blank page trying to figure out what to write, they hold the hotkey and start talking. The act of speaking makes abstract thoughts concrete and often reveals connections that were not visible internally. You can learn more about this approach in our blog post on going from typing 40 WPM to speaking 150 WPM.
Significantly. Speaking speed averages 130 to 150 WPM compared to 40 to 60 WPM typing or 13 to 20 WPM handwriting. In a 10-minute session, voice captures roughly 3 times more ideas than typing and 8 times more than handwriting.
Steno works in any text field on macOS. Popular choices include Apple Notes for quick captures, Obsidian for linked thinking, Notion for structured brainstorms, and Google Docs for collaborative ideation. Even a plain text file in your code editor works perfectly.
Speak one idea per dictation burst. Hold the hotkey, say one thought, release. Then hold again for the next idea. This creates natural line breaks between ideas. You can also use verbal markers like "new idea" or "category two" to add structure on the fly.
Steno requires an internet connection for transcription through Groq Whisper. The app shows an offline mode indicator so you always know your connection status. For uninterrupted brainstorming, make sure you have a stable connection before starting your session.
Download Steno and turn your next brainstorm into a flood of captured ideas.
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