Voice Dictation
Author/Source: Chris Blattman, claudeblattman.com
Key Ideas¶
- Voice dictation is described as the single biggest productivity change alongside AI chatbots -- the author "basically never types anymore."
- Speaking at 150+ words per minute versus typing at 60 wpm gives a 2-3x speed increase on text-heavy tasks.
- The real payoff is not speed but reduced friction in starting: it is much easier to talk through an idea than to write it from scratch.
- Wispr Flow (~$10/month) works system-wide across Mac, Windows, and iPhone in any app, learns vocabulary over time, handles multilingual input, and adjusts formatting to context.
- Key use cases: email dictation, AI prompt composition, first drafts of any writing (proposals, paper introductions, blog posts).
- Alternatives include Apple Dictation (free), Superwhisper (privacy-focused, local processing), Aqua Voice (sub-50ms latency), Voibe (100% offline), and OpenAI Whisper (open-source).
- The learning curve is about one week; after that, typing feels slow.
Summary¶
This article advocates for system-wide voice dictation as a foundational productivity tool, independent of any AI coding workflow. The author's tool of choice is Wispr Flow, which works via a hotkey in any text field on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. It learns the user's vocabulary over time, handles language switching, and adjusts punctuation based on context (email vs. code vs. notes).
The article describes three primary use cases: dictating emails (quick replies directly into Gmail, longer messages through Claude for formatting), composing AI prompts (dictate a rough request, use a skill to reformat, get polished output in 30 seconds), and writing first drafts of any document. The emphasis is that the hardest part of writing is starting, and dictation eliminates that friction entirely. Several alternatives are listed for users with different platform needs or privacy requirements.
Relevance to Economics Research¶
For researchers who spend significant time writing -- emails to collaborators, referee report responses, grant proposals, paper drafts -- voice dictation can substantially reduce the friction of producing text. The workflow of dictating a rough draft and then editing is particularly applicable to academic writing, where the blank-page problem is a common bottleneck. The combination of voice dictation with AI formatting (dictate rough thoughts, let Claude polish them) is a practical workflow for composing referee responses, abstract drafts, or meeting preparation notes.