My friend Brian loves his digital audio recorder. He has a terrible memory so he carries it with him everywhere and grabs it when something comes to mind. Throughout the day he’ll record snippets and ideas, and then sit down in the afternoon or evening to transcribe the thoughts into his journal.

I’ve done a few of these, but while I can handle the first step of recording my thoughts pretty easily, I have a lot of trouble with the second. I’ve put some audio notes into Evernote, but I never go back and listen to them. And last night I spent over thirty minutes recording some story ideas I had, but I worry I won’t actually do anything with those notes.

The act of saying the ideas out loud helps me to remember, and I don’t have too much trouble in that department to begin with. But I’m curious about your experiences: have you tried audio recording for ideas, and do you have any tips to share?