You're rarely at a desk. Between commutes, client sites, and coffee shops, your best ideas and most urgent replies happen on your feet.
You're a sales account executive who's in the office two days and on the road three. Your phone is your primary work tool most of the day.
You're on the train and your inbox has twelve messages from overnight. Six need real replies. You open Gmail on your iPhone, read each one, and hold the Steno button to dictate your response. The train is noisy but Steno handles it. Three stops and all six emails are sent. The people around you are still scrolling. You've already cleared your inbox.
"Hi Lisa, thanks for sending over the contract redlines. I've reviewed the updated terms and everything looks good on our end. I'll get the signed copy back to you by end of day tomorrow. Let me know if you need anything else in the meantime."
Hi Lisa, thanks for sending over the contract redlines. I've reviewed the updated terms and everything looks good on our end. I'll get the signed copy back to you by end of day tomorrow. Let me know if you need anything else in the meantime.
You're walking from the parking garage to your client's office. You have five minutes and three things you want to remember to bring up in the meeting. You pull out your phone, open Notes, and hold the Steno button while you walk. By the time you reach the lobby, your prep notes are captured. No stopping, no typing with your thumbs, no forgetting what you wanted to say.
The meeting just ended and everything is fresh. You're sitting in the car before starting the engine. You open Notes on your iPhone and dictate the full summary: what they agreed to, what the concerns were, next steps, and the timeline they mentioned. Two minutes of talking captures what would take fifteen minutes of typing on a tiny keyboard. You'll move this into Salesforce later when you're at your laptop.
"Meeting with Acme Corp went well. They're interested in the enterprise tier but want a pilot with 50 users first. Main concern is SSO integration with their Okta setup. Decision maker is VP of Ops, Jennifer Walsh. She wants a proposal by Friday. Follow up with their IT lead, David, about the API requirements."
Meeting with Acme Corp went well. They're interested in the enterprise tier but want a pilot with 50 users first. Main concern is SSO integration with their Okta setup. Decision maker is VP of Ops, Jennifer Walsh. She wants a proposal by Friday. Follow up with their IT lead, David, about the API requirements.
You've stopped at a coffee shop and opened your MacBook for the first time today. Slack has twenty-three unread messages across eight channels. You work through them with the hotkey: read a thread, hold the key, speak your reply. The deal review channel gets a paragraph about this morning's meeting. The team channel gets a quick status update. The support escalation thread gets a detailed response. Twenty minutes and you're caught up on everything.
You're walking six blocks to your next client meeting. Your manager wants a proposal outline for the Acme Corp pilot by end of day. You pull out your phone and dictate the whole outline into Google Docs while you walk. Executive summary, scope, pricing tiers, timeline, success metrics. Four minutes of walking and talking gets you a full first draft. You would have never found time to sit down and type this out today.
You're in an Uber heading to one last meeting. You have four follow-up emails to send from this morning's conversations. You open Gmail on your iPhone and dictate each one. The proposal confirmation to Jennifer at Acme. The introduction email connecting two contacts. The pricing clarification your prospect asked about. The internal update to your manager. All four done before the driver takes the highway exit.
You're on the train home. Instead of carrying a mental checklist into the evening, you open Notes on your iPhone and dictate tomorrow's plan. The three calls you need to make. The proposal you need to finalize. The Salesforce entries from today's meetings. The expense report that's overdue. Forty-five seconds and your head is clear. Tomorrow morning you'll open your phone and know exactly where to start.
After your next meeting, don't wait until you're back at a desk. Pull out your phone, hold the Steno button, and reply to the two most urgent emails while you walk. They'll be sent before you start the engine.
Sit in the car for two minutes after every client meeting and dictate everything while it's fresh. Names, numbers, next steps. You'll never lose another detail to a busy afternoon.
Don't save proposal writing for the end of the day when you've forgotten half the details. Dictate the outline on your next walk or ride. A rough draft spoken in four minutes is better than a polished one you never find time to start.