Jott to Self: Productivity

I’m obsessed with cool productivity tricks and there are thousands of tools that can help. So I go about the usual trial phase where I play with the tool and it is cool, but for some reason it doesn’t stick. Recently, one stuck.

The problem:

Ever notice how your best ideas happen while you are in a situation where you cannot write them down? For me, ideas often happen in the car while driving. Invariably, I get back to the office or home and I cannot remember the idea or task or reminder or interesting tidbit.

Many people get voice recorders, whether as a typical tape based unit or something more high-tech, like an iPod, Treo or mobile phone. My problem is that I would never quite get around to transcribing the notes on the voice recorder into to something that I could use.

The Solution: Jott

So grab your cell phone, dial a phone number.

“Who do you want to Jott?” she says.

I say, “Jott to self.”

“Jott to self… beep”

Then leave a 30 second audio message.

“Got it. Who do you want to Jott?” she echoes back. Repeat the process or hang up.

Then magic happens. When I get back to my office or home, there is an email waiting for me from Jott. The message has been transcribed through voice recognition which I can copy into anything else, like a task list or email or document. And you can even link directly to the audio if the voice transcription didn’t work.

From my experience, the voice recognition is good enough that I almost never need to listen to the audio because the first few words are enough to spur on my memory. But it is there for the random time you might need to hear it again.

You can even send Jotts directly to others from the phone to delegate tasks or set reminders. I’ve recommended this tool to several people and the return reviews have been stellar. The voice recognition is quite good and I’m always amazed by some of the things that it gets right. Use of the tool is quite simple because you already know how to dial a number and receive email. Managing your Jotts isn’t something you need to actually do, just clean out the inbox from time to time. And you can even use the online tool to create SMS reminders to yourself for random things that you want to do. Accounts are free so go check out Jott.