That’s the motto of Dial2Do, a free voice-to-text service that lets you make a phone call to record reminders and send email and text messages. Since I often think of things I need to do or tell someone while I’m away from my desk or out of the office, this has become one of my most frequently used productivity tools.
You can use it with a cell phone or land line as long as caller ID is enabled (so they can recognize your incoming call).
After you’ve registered for a free account (it only takes a couple of minutes) you’ll need to add the contact information for the folks you want to email or text. You can do this manually or import from Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo, or Jajah. You’re “limited” to 100 names.
Now you’re ready to use the service. Just call the dial2Do number. Tell them what you want to do and record your message. When they answer they’ll ask you “what would you like to do?”
If you say “reminder” they’ll send you an email with the details.
If you say “email” they’ll ask for the contact name. They’ll send that person an email with your recorded message.
Here’s the part I really love, since I’m “all thumbs” when it comes to texting. If you say “text” they’ll ask for the contact name. They’ll send that person a text (SMS) message that says what you recorded. You won’t have to fumble with the small keys on your phone, abbreviate every other word, or take your eyes off the road while driving. Use your wireless headset with voice control and you can happily practice safe texting.
Shhh…don’t tell my granddaughter this trick…she’ll think I finally figured out how to master the tiny keyboard on my cell phone. My son recently discovered one small glitch with the texting capability and that’s the fact that the recipient can’t reply to the message since it comes from Dial2Do and not the sender’s phone number. So tell folks up front that they’ll have to send you a new message when you text them this way.
With just a little more setup work, you can configure your Dial2Do account to perform a few magic tricks so you can
• listen to your email
• hear your local weather
• add appointments to your Google calendar
• add tasks to your to do lists on Remember the Milk, 30Boxes, Toodledo, or Vitalist
• post expenses to your Xpenser account
• post a tweet to your Twitter, FriendFeed, or HelloTxt account
• listen to your favorite news feeds
• post to your Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, or LiveJournal blog
• add notes to your Evernote account
All with a simple phone call. Easy. Handsfree. All you have to do is talk.
Typing is so 20th century. I’m almost ready to put my pencils up for sale on Craig’slist.
P.S. don’t worry if you’re not familiar with all of the other services that Dial2Do can hook up to. I’ll be writing about many of them in the coming weeks.
