For those of you who make lots of notes, lists and reminders, you’ll find today’s blog post to be very exciting. With so little time to get so much done, anything to increase productivity is worth a shot. And using your voice might just be the key.
1. You open Evernote on one of your devices;
2. You record a voice note and save it;
3. In minutes your voice note is transcribed and the transcript magically appears in Evernote;
Quicktate can actually turn Evernote voice notes into text that you can easily search and access anywhere you have Evernote installed.
What are some examples of audio files you can record and have transcribed in Evernote?
1. To-do list, To-call list, Grocery list; Supply list, Holiday gift list; Packing list, Bucket list;
2. Summaries of meetings you attended;
3. Summaries of phone calls;
4. Notes for the book you want to write (or dictate the whole book);
5. Ideas that randomly pop into your head;
6. Property or site inspection reports if you work or take notes in the field.
Transcribing these notes might be the easiest way to find and remember them later.
An introduction to Quicktate
Unlike some transcription services, Quicktate does not use voice recognition technology but rather, employs its own team of pre-screened professionals that transcribe voice recordings. Because your audio notes are transcribed by a real human, the accuracy of the transcription is remarkably high, and the turnaround is surprisingly quick.
Quicktate transcribes both long and short voice notes, voice mail messages and recordings of phone calls. One-minute voice notes recorded in Evernote are usually transcribed within 3 to 4 minutes. Longer notes will take more time.
To start using Quicktate, first
create an account. As part of setting up your account, you’ll be asked to authorize Quicktate to access your Evernote account. (Don’t worry, Quicktate can only see your new audio notes – Quicktate
cannot see your other notes.) After you’ve linked your accounts, any time you create an audio recording in Evernote, the recording will be sent to Quicktate for transcription, and the transcribed text will go straight back into the original note in your Evernote account.
You can record an audio note in every version of Evernote. But if you’re on the go, you can also call (888) 222-NOTE and dictate your recording by phone.
In addition to creating your audio in Evernote, you can send audios to Evernote by email, and those audios, assuming they are mp3, Wav, or AIF, will be transcribed too.
And one more thing. Not only can you email your own recordings to Evernote, but you can also deliver your voicemail messages (or call recordings) to Evernote where they too will be transcribed and become searchable. This feature only works if your phone provider is able to email audio recordings. A few phone providers that can email voicemail or call recordings are 8×8, Accessline, Cisco, inTalk, Kall8, Ring Central and Vitelity. The diagram above shows how this works.
A Word of Caution
If you don’t want a particular audio note transcribed, please visit the “How it Works” page of the Quicktate website.
Conclusion
Dictating and transcribing your notes right in Evernote might just allow you to get more done in less time. You can try Quicktate for free (automatic $5.00 credit) at
http://quicktate.com/evernote.
