I Stopped Typing for a Week. Here Is What Actually Happened.

I did not have a dramatic reason for trying this. My wrists were fine. My typing speed was decent. I just kept reading that people spoke faster than they typed, and I wanted to know if it actually translated into more output or if it was one of those ideas that sounds better than it works.

So I set a rule. For one week, I would dictate everything I could. Emails, notes, first drafts, Slack messages. If it required writing prose, I would speak it instead of type it.

Day One: Slower Than Expected

The first morning was humbling. I dictated a three-paragraph email and it took longer than typing would have. Not because the transcription was slow, it was not, VoiceInk had the words on screen almost before I finished the sentence. The problem was me. I kept stopping to think, then restarting the dictation, then losing my place.

Typing has a rhythm. You can pause mid-sentence without penalty because the cursor just waits. Speaking felt different. A pause felt like a signal to stop, even when I was not done.

By the afternoon I had figured out that the trick was to keep talking even when I was not sure what came next. Filler words and false starts could be cleaned up later. Stopping to think was the enemy of momentum.

Day Three: Something Shifted

By Wednesday I stopped feeling like I was performing for the microphone. The dictation just happened. I would open a document, press the key, and start talking.

My notes from a client call that afternoon were the best I had written in months, not because the words were better, but because I had captured more of them. I spoke for four minutes right after hanging up and got a detailed summary I would never have typed out because typing it would have taken twenty minutes I did not have.

Day Five: The Output Numbers

I write about 1,200 words on a normal workday across emails, documents, and notes. By Thursday I was tracking closer to 1,800 without working longer hours. The extra 600 words were coming from two places. First, I was capturing things I previously would have skipped because the effort felt disproportionate to the value. Second, my first drafts were longer, rougher, and faster to produce.

The editing took the same time. Maybe slightly more. But starting with more raw material made editing easier than starting with a blank page.

The Moments It Did Not Work

I want to be honest about the failures. Dictating anything with specific formatting was annoying. Technical terms required spelling out or correcting. I could not dictate in a coffee shop without feeling self-conscious, and once, during an important message, my upstairs neighbor started vacuuming and wrecked the transcription.

Voice dictation also did not help with the structural thinking part of writing. Knowing what to say still required the same amount of thinking. The voice just got it out faster once I knew.

What I Kept After the Week Ended

I did not become a voice-only person. I still type. But I changed where I draw the line.

Anything over 200 words, I dictate the first draft and edit in text. Meeting notes go straight to voice while I am still in the room, or immediately after. Long emails that used to sit in my drafts folder half-finished get done in one take while I am standing at my desk.

The keyboard is still there. I just stopped treating it as the only option.

If you are curious whether dictation would work for you, the only real way to find out is to try it for a few days, not an hour. Give yourself enough time to get past the awkward part. The awkward part does end.