Earlier today, I wrote a blog post about how to Dictate Your Book. No, actually, I spoke a blog post about dictating your book. What an enlightening experience that was. Let me tell you about it.

Following the guidance of Monica Leonelle in her book, Dictate Your Book, I  dictated a blog post. I was able to write 1,000 words in approximately 10 minutes. I am now writing this blog post using the same procedures.

Very simply, I am using Google Docs and the tool – voice typing. The benefit of using Google Docs is that it’s free. I am very pleased with how well it transcribes what I am saying.

Using Google Docs Voice Typing

To use Google Docs and voice typing, simply,  start a new Google document,  click on Tools, and then click on voice typing. A new icon will open up on your screen that looks like a microphone.

Click on that microphone and it will turn the red. At that point, you can begin typing or begin speaking because this process is all about speaking. When you’re done click on the microphone and begin editing your document. It is that simple. I just finished putting over 200 words on paper in about 2 minutes.

One of the most significant benefits I see from using voice typing is it allows you to concentrate on your writing versus editing and writing. This allows you to get more words on a paper in a shorter period of time. You are able to get your thoughts out rather than always going back and trying to fix mistakes.

A Couple of Lessons

To make the voice typing work, you will have to learn certain commands for punctuation. I have included a couple here:

• PERIOD
• COMMA
• QUESTION MARK
• EXCLAMATION MARK
• NEW LINE
• NEW PARAGRAPH
• COLON

Lesson two, you will also have to learn to work through your mistakes and be able to fix them in post-production editing. One of the strategies Leonelle recommended was to have a grievance list of common error that you see. You can then fix them in post-production with search and replace.

Two more minutes have gone by and I have basically finished drafting this blog post. It is now time to move to editing.

I have discovered a new way to be more productive. Experiment with it, I think you will like it.

Additional Reading

• How to Grab a Transcript While You Record

Stan Skrabut, Ed.D.

Stan is Director of Technology-Enhanced Instruction. He has over 20 years experience working as an instructional technologist and trainer. He has a master’s degree in computing technology in education and a doctorate in education specializing in instructional technology.