I type fast. Around 130 words per minute on a good day. I assumed voice dictation was for people who couldn't type.
Then I got tendinitis in my right wrist and had to rethink that assumption.
The experiment
I committed to using voice dictation for everything non-code for 30 days. Emails, Slack messages, documentation, meeting notes, this post.
The tool I landed on was dictate.app. It runs on Windows, uses Groq's Whisper model under the hood, and works in every app via push-to-talk. Hold a key, speak, release. The text appears wherever your cursor is.
No cloud subscription lock-in. No browser tab required. $8.99 a month.
Week 1: frustrating
The first week was rough. I kept stopping mid-sentence to think, which tanked my speed. Voice dictation rewards people who can think in complete sentences. I couldn't.
My accuracy was around 92%. That sounds good until you're editing "public static void" into "public static Lloyd" for the fifth time.
I also felt weird talking at my desk. Self-conscious. I work in a home office so nobody heard me, but it still felt strange.
Week 2: it clicked
Something shifted around day 10. I stopped trying to speak like I type. I started speaking like I talk.
Shorter sentences. More natural phrasing. Trusting the edit pass.
My speed jumped. I was hitting 180 to 200 words per minute on long-form content. That's 40 to 50 percent faster than my typing.
The push-to-talk mode helped a lot. I could pause, think, then speak. No awkward silences captured. No "um" and "uh" in my text.
Week 3: real productivity gains
By week three I was writing better emails. Faster, yes, but also more human. When you speak, you don't write like a robot.
Documentation improved too. I stopped abbreviating. I stopped leaving out context. Speaking a full explanation is easier than typing a full explanation.
Meeting notes went from 20 minutes of typing to 5 minutes of speaking. That time adds up.
Week 4: the honest verdict
What voice dictation is great for:
- Emails and Slack messages
- Documentation and wikis
- Meeting notes and summaries
- Blog posts and long-form content
- Any creative writing
What it's bad for:
- Code (variable names are a disaster)
- Terminal commands
- Anything requiring exact syntax
- Situations where you can't speak out loud
The numbers
After 30 days, I tracked my output:
- Average words per minute typing: 130
- Average words per minute speaking: 190
- Reduction in wrist strain: noticeable
- Time saved per day on non-code writing: about 45 minutes
The 45-minute daily savings was the biggest surprise. I write more than I thought.
Would I keep using it?
Yes. I kept using it. I'm still using it.
Not for code. Not for the terminal. But for everything else, speaking is faster and less physically demanding than typing.
If you're curious, dictate.app has a 7-day free trial. Try it for a week and pay attention to how much non-code writing you actually do. You might be surprised.
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