Voice Notes vs Typing: Which is Faster for Capturing Ideas?

You're walking down the street when a brilliant idea hits you. Do you stop, pull out your phone, and type it out? Or do you just... say it?

We've been obsessed with this question at TalkNotez, so we decided to test it properly.

The Experiment

We asked 50 people to capture 100 random ideas using both methods:

• Typing into a standard notes app
• Speaking into a voice recorder

We measured time to capture, completeness of the idea, and how often people gave up mid-thought.

The Results

Voice notes were 3.2x faster on average. But that's not the interesting part.

The real difference was in idea completeness. When typing, people captured about 60% of their original thought. When speaking, they captured 94%.

Why? Because typing is slow enough that your brain moves on. By the time you've typed the first sentence, you've forgotten the nuance of the third.

When Typing Still Wins

Voice notes aren't always better. Typing wins when:

• You're in a quiet meeting or library
• The idea is short and simple (a URL, a name)
• You need to format something specific (code, lists)

The Best of Both Worlds

The ideal workflow? Capture with voice, refine with text.

That's exactly why we built TalkNotez with AI cleanup. You speak your messy, stream-of-consciousness thoughts. AI turns them into clean, organized notes you can actually use.

"I used to lose 80% of my shower thoughts. Now I just say them out loud and deal with them later."

Try It Yourself

Next time an idea hits you, try speaking it instead of typing. You might be surprised how much more you capture.