I want to let you in on something I do that sounds almost too simple to work.
I open the Voice Memos app on my iPhone. I hit record. And I just talk.
Not polished, not organized. I say “um.” I pause mid-sentence. I start over sometimes. I ramble. And when I’m done, I copy the transcript and paste it into an AI tool and let it do the heavy lifting.
That’s my workflow. That’s it.
I know it sounds almost too casual to be effective, but I promise you it works. And I think it works specifically because it removes the biggest barrier most people hit when they try to use AI tools: not knowing what to say or how to say it.
You Don’t Have to Be a Prompt Engineer
There’s a lot of noise out there about “prompt engineering” and crafting the perfect input to get the best output from AI. And yes, there are situations where precision matters. If you’re doing something technical or nuanced, a well-crafted prompt makes a difference.
But for a large portion of what most of us actually need AI for? You can just talk like a normal person and it will figure out the rest.
I use this method for:
Organizing my thoughts on a project before I write anything formal
Ideating content I want to create
Getting unstuck when I’m not sure how to approach something
Thinking through a problem out loud and asking the AI to help me make sense of it
Getting a rough first draft out of my head and onto a page
The transcript doesn’t have to be clean. The AI is not grading your grammar. It is remarkably good at extracting meaning and structure from messy, conversational input.
My Actual Setup
I have four AI apps on my iPhone: Claude, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity. Each one has a built-in microphone so technically you could talk directly into any of them. But my preferred method is Voice Memos because the transcript is saved, I can review it before I send it anywhere, and I can route it to whichever tool makes the most sense for what I need.
Which tool I use depends on what I’m doing:
Claude is my go-to for writing, organizing thoughts, and longer-form work
ChatGPT is great for quick ideation and back-and-forth conversation.
Gemini is a rock star for highly relevant search and imagery.
Perplexity is where I go when I need peer-reviewed research and citable sources.
None of this requires a paid plan to try. Start with whatever free tier you have access to and just paste your transcript in.
A Real Example
This post? Started as a voice memo. I was lazing around thinking about how I wanted to explain my workflow to people, so I just started talking. I hit stop, copied the transcript, pasted it into Claude, and said “help me turn this into a content for my blog and social media” What came back was the foundation for what you’re reading right now.
That is not a shortcut. That is working smarter.
Try It This Week
Open Voice Memos. Hit record. Talk about one thing you’re working on or thinking through. Don’t edit yourself. Just talk for two or three minutes. Then copy the transcript, paste it into any AI tool, and tell it what you want it to do with it.
You might be surprised how much easier the whole thing feels when you stop trying to get it perfect before you even start.
That’s what this blog is about. Not the flashiest AI use cases. The practical ones. The ones that actually fit into a real workday.
See you next week.
Meredith
Meredith Hurston is a healthcare quality professional, doctoral student in AI and machine learning, and the author of Algorithmic Oversight. Lab Notes is her newsletter documenting the practical, honest side of working with AI in healthcare.
