I've been a product manager for over a decade. In that time, I've written hundreds of PRDs — Product Requirements Documents. Each one takes hours. The research, the structure, the edge cases, the acceptance criteria... it adds up.
About six months ago, I started writing PRDs by speaking instead of typing. It changed everything.
Here's exactly how I do it, what tools I use, and why voice typing might be the biggest productivity unlock for PMs that nobody talks about.
The Problem with Typing PRDs
Let me paint the picture. You've just come out of a stakeholder meeting. Your head is full of context — user pain points, technical constraints, business goals, edge cases someone mentioned in passing. You sit down to write the PRD.
And then... you stare at the blank doc.
The problem isn't that you don't know what to write. It's that the act of typing forces you into "editing mode" too early. You start wordsmithing the overview before you've even captured the requirements. You reorganize sections before the first draft exists.
Typing is slow enough that your inner editor catches up to your thoughts. And for PMs, that's deadly — because PRDs need to capture everything before they get polished.
The Voice-First Approach
Here's what I do now:
Step 1: Brain Dump by Voice (15-20 minutes)
Right after a meeting or research session, I open Typeless and just start talking. No structure. No formatting. Just a stream of consciousness:
"Okay so the main user problem is that enterprise customers can't bulk-import their existing data when they onboard. They're manually entering hundreds of records. The sales team says this is the number one reason deals stall at the pilot stage. We need a CSV import flow, probably also support for Excel files. Edge case — what happens when there are duplicate entries? We need a merge or skip option. Oh and Sarah mentioned that some customers have custom fields so the import mapper needs to handle that..."
Typeless transcribes this in real-time with surprisingly good accuracy. It handles technical terms, product jargon, and even those half-formed thoughts that come out when you're processing information verbally.
The key insight: speaking is 3-4x faster than typing, and more importantly, it keeps you in "capture mode" instead of "edit mode."
Step 2: Structure the Raw Dump (10 minutes)
Now I have a wall of text — but it's a wall of text that contains everything. I copy it into my PRD template and start organizing. Move the user problem stuff into the Problem Statement section. Pull out the requirements. Group the edge cases.
This is dramatically faster than writing from scratch because I'm not generating content anymore — I'm just organizing content that already exists.
Step 3: Voice-Dictate the Refined Sections (20-30 minutes)
For sections that need more polish — the overview, the success metrics, the user stories — I dictate again, but this time with more intention. I'll say something like:
"User story: As an enterprise admin, I want to import existing customer records via CSV upload so that I can onboard my team without manual data entry. Acceptance criteria: the system should accept CSV and XLSX files up to 50MB, display a column mapping interface before import, detect and flag duplicate records with options to skip merge or overwrite..."
Typeless handles the punctuation and formatting naturally. I don't have to say "comma" or "period" — the AI figures it out from context.
Step 4: Edit and Polish (15-20 minutes)
The final pass is traditional typing — fixing formatting, adding links, tweaking language. But this is maybe 20% of the total work instead of 100%.
Total time: about 60-80 minutes for a solid PRD.
Before voice typing, the same PRD would take me 3-4 hours.
Why This Works So Well for PMs Specifically
Product managers think in conversations. We spend our days in meetings, user interviews, and stakeholder discussions. Our brains are wired to process and communicate information verbally.
But then we sit down to write and switch to a completely different mode. Voice typing eliminates that context switch. You go from talking about the product to talking through the document.
A few specific PM use cases where voice typing shines:
User interview synthesis. Right after an interview, dictate your key takeaways while they're fresh. I used to lose so much nuance by the time I got around to writing up my notes.
Competitive analysis. When you're reviewing a competitor's product, narrate what you're seeing in real-time. "Their onboarding flow has five steps, the third step asks for company size which seems unnecessary, their dashboard defaults to a weekly view which is interesting because ours defaults to daily..."
Sprint planning prep. Talk through your priorities and rationale before the meeting. It forces you to articulate your thinking, and you end up with notes you can reference.
Stakeholder updates. Those weekly status emails that take forever? Dictate them in 5 minutes.
My Tool Setup
The core of my workflow is Typeless. What sold me:
- Context-aware transcription. It understands that "API" isn't "a pie" and "PRD" isn't "purred." This matters enormously for technical PMs.
- Real-time processing. I see the text appear as I speak, which helps me stay on track.
- Works across apps. I can dictate directly into Google Docs, Notion, Confluence — wherever the PRD lives.
- 100+ language support. I work with international teams, and being able to dictate notes in different languages is genuinely useful.
For meetings specifically, I pair this with Fireflies.ai to auto-record and transcribe. So even if I don't dictate my own notes, I have a searchable transcript I can pull from when writing the PRD later.
The combination is powerful: Fireflies captures what was said in the meeting, and Typeless helps me write up what it means for the product.
Common Objections (And My Responses)
"I can't dictate in an open office."
Fair. I do most of my voice typing either from home, in a meeting room, or with a good directional mic that minimizes background noise. But honestly, since remote and hybrid work became the norm, this is less of an issue than people think.
"My thoughts aren't organized enough to speak them."
That's actually the point. The brain dump phase is supposed to be messy. You organize after. Trying to speak in perfect structured sentences defeats the purpose.
"Voice typing makes too many errors."
This was true a few years ago. Modern AI dictation — especially tools like Typeless that are built on large language models — is remarkably accurate. I'd estimate 95%+ accuracy for normal speech, and it handles technical terms better than I expected.
"I think better when I type."
Some people genuinely do. But I'd challenge you to try voice typing for a week before deciding. Most PMs I've converted were skeptical at first. The speed difference is hard to argue with once you experience it.
The Numbers
Since switching to voice-first PRD writing six months ago:
- PRD writing time: Down from 3-4 hours to 60-80 minutes (roughly 3x faster)
- PRDs per week: Up from 1-2 to 3-4
- Quality: Honestly better, because I capture more context in the brain dump phase
- RSI issues: Noticeably reduced (I used to get wrist pain from marathon typing sessions)
The last point matters more than people realize. PMs type a lot. PRDs, emails, Slack messages, Jira tickets, documentation. Voice typing offloads a significant chunk of that.
Getting Started
If you want to try this:
- Get Typeless and spend 10 minutes just talking to it. Get comfortable with the speed and accuracy.
- Start with brain dumps. Don't try to dictate a polished PRD on day one. Just capture raw thoughts after your next meeting.
- Build a PRD template with clear sections. This gives you buckets to organize your voice notes into.
- Give it a week. The first day feels weird. By day three, you'll wonder why you ever typed PRDs from scratch.
Voice typing isn't going to replace all your writing. But for the heavy-lifting, first-draft, get-it-all-down phase of PRD writing? It's the biggest productivity gain I've found in years.
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