I also use audiobooks more these days, mostly when driving or walking, but it’s not conducive to taking notes or browsing afterwards. Not sure how to deal with that.
I use my phone to take notes, preferably by speech-to-text. Right now I use “Write SMS by Voice”, but I’m not entirely satisfied with it, because of the few button-presses that are still required to get it going. Does anyone have any suggestions for all-voice-based note taking?
I have had problems with that too. Usually if the point seems particularly insightful / important, I’ll take out my phone to write down the note at that moment, usually as a text to myself. But that happens rarely. Normally, I just try to take notes when at the soonest convenient moment (e.g., at the end of my commute).
I think reading good summaries of the books before and after mitigates the downside of not taking notes a good amount, so I don’t worry about this as much as I used to.
Programs exist for taking dictation and turning it into written notes, though I don’t know any good way to tag those notes to the corresponding part of the audiobook.
There are products such as Livescribe which are designed to “remember” what parts of an audio recording (aimed at lectures, but should work for audiobooks if the pen could hear the book too) any given written note correspond to. I’m not sure if that’s more practical than simply writing the section of the book (or elapsed time of the audio file) in the margin of the note, but it’s an option.
Actually, that gives me an interesting idea. I normally read on the bus during my commute. Mostly I read ebooks or websites (still working though the Sequences), but I’ve slipped the occasional e-audiobook in there too (tip: get them from the library, way better than “buying” a DRMed copy). There’s no reason I couldn’t take notes on my phone while listening to an audiobook. The playback controls are in easy reach, so I can pause or skip in either direction quickly, but at the same time I can have a note-taking app (I use OneNote usually, but there are lots of options) open. If you’ve got decent typing speed on the phone, you can probably even manage with minimal pauses in the narration.
Some e-reader apps will let you take notes on a text as you read it, but in most cases those aren’t nearly as easy to review as OneNote/Evernote/whatever and you still have to take time away from reading to write. Audiobooks don’t have that limitation, so long as you can take notes on the last thing you heard while still listening at the same time (a skill I mastered during a particularly intensive course back in freshman year).
Of course, none of these options work very well when walking. I’m not sure what would, aside from stopping to pull out your device and put down some notes.
I also use audiobooks more these days, mostly when driving or walking, but it’s not conducive to taking notes or browsing afterwards. Not sure how to deal with that.
I use my phone to take notes, preferably by speech-to-text. Right now I use “Write SMS by Voice”, but I’m not entirely satisfied with it, because of the few button-presses that are still required to get it going. Does anyone have any suggestions for all-voice-based note taking?
Presumably, if you speak clearly, Siri/GNow/Cortana should be able to act as your private secretary. Here is the OneNote version:
http://blogs.office.com/2014/06/12/create-quick-notes-in-onenote-using-only-your-voice/
Much better, thanks
I have had problems with that too. Usually if the point seems particularly insightful / important, I’ll take out my phone to write down the note at that moment, usually as a text to myself. But that happens rarely. Normally, I just try to take notes when at the soonest convenient moment (e.g., at the end of my commute).
I think reading good summaries of the books before and after mitigates the downside of not taking notes a good amount, so I don’t worry about this as much as I used to.
Programs exist for taking dictation and turning it into written notes, though I don’t know any good way to tag those notes to the corresponding part of the audiobook.
There are products such as Livescribe which are designed to “remember” what parts of an audio recording (aimed at lectures, but should work for audiobooks if the pen could hear the book too) any given written note correspond to. I’m not sure if that’s more practical than simply writing the section of the book (or elapsed time of the audio file) in the margin of the note, but it’s an option.
Actually, that gives me an interesting idea. I normally read on the bus during my commute. Mostly I read ebooks or websites (still working though the Sequences), but I’ve slipped the occasional e-audiobook in there too (tip: get them from the library, way better than “buying” a DRMed copy). There’s no reason I couldn’t take notes on my phone while listening to an audiobook. The playback controls are in easy reach, so I can pause or skip in either direction quickly, but at the same time I can have a note-taking app (I use OneNote usually, but there are lots of options) open. If you’ve got decent typing speed on the phone, you can probably even manage with minimal pauses in the narration.
Some e-reader apps will let you take notes on a text as you read it, but in most cases those aren’t nearly as easy to review as OneNote/Evernote/whatever and you still have to take time away from reading to write. Audiobooks don’t have that limitation, so long as you can take notes on the last thing you heard while still listening at the same time (a skill I mastered during a particularly intensive course back in freshman year).
Of course, none of these options work very well when walking. I’m not sure what would, aside from stopping to pull out your device and put down some notes.