Idea capture on an old-school voice recorder

I picked up this Olympus microcassette recorder from Staples for 35 bucks. Why? It’s a quick way for me to record an idea or something I need to remember to do. My cell phone has a voice recorder but it allows only 10 notes. There’s also a voice recorder on my PDA, but I need to enter a password then navigate some menus to get at it. I also have pen and paper in my wallet, but it’s faster to speak than to write.

So whether I’m sitting in the car, or taking a shower, or walking along the street, I can quickly take this out and press Record when I need to note an idea for later. Of course, it’s sometimes not appropriate to pull out a tape recorder, such as when you’re having a conversation with someone, in which case you use pen and paper. But it’s pretty handy for most situations (not to mention cheap).

I transfer these voice notes to my main system (Outlook) every few days, or during my GTD Weekly Review on Saturdays.

It’s a hardy little unit. As General Chuck Yeager said in praise of an engine, “Simple, few parts, easy to maintain, very strong.”