A strange thing happened this year. I stopped taking notes. Not because I became less productive, but because I found something faster. I started talking to ChatGPT on my phone.
Now when an idea hits, I don’t open my laptop. I don’t open Notion. I don’t start typing into a blank page. I open the ChatGPT mobile app, press the voice button, and just start talking. No structure. No formatting. No worrying whether it sounds intelligent. Just raw thinking out loud.
I use it like a mini board meeting in my pocket.
I’ll say, “Okay, I’m thinking about launching this new product. Here are three directions I could take…” and then I walk through each option. I talk about risks. I talk about upside. I talk about pricing. I talk about positioning. I argue with myself. I change my mind mid-sentence. I explore ideas that would feel too messy to type.
There’s something powerful about speaking instead of writing. Typing slows you down. It forces you to organize too early. When you speak, ideas flow at the speed of thought. And when inspiration strikes, you don’t have time to polish sentences. You need to capture momentum.
At the end of these “meetings,” I simply say, “Summarize this for me. Give me the core idea, the best options, the risks, and the next steps.” Within seconds, I have clarity. A clean summary. A structured outline. Actionable bullets pulled from ten minutes of unfiltered thinking.
I use this workflow for almost everything.
Before meetings, I’ll talk through what I know about a company or person and then ask for a concise brief with smart questions I should ask. When I’m learning something new, I’ll say, “Explain this in simple terms but assume I’m technical.” When I’m writing a book, I’ll rant about a chapter idea and then ask it to turn my rambling into a structured outline with subheadings.
This article was developed the same way.
The hidden advantage isn’t just speed. It’s friction removal. There’s no gap between idea and capture. No formatting. No backspacing. No overthinking. Just conversation. And then distillation.
It feels like having a co-founder who listens perfectly and never gets tired of your half-baked thoughts. Someone who can instantly turn chaos into structure.
Most people use ChatGPT like a search engine. I use it like a thinking partner.
And the moment I realized I could just talk instead of type, everything changed.
