I'm using Samsung's Voice Recorder to avoid this app's premium plan

I can’t be alone in wishing I’d stored a journal over time. I’d love to mirror on what I used to be up to on sure days 20 years in the past and the way I used to be processing all of it. Aside from just a few batches of photographs and my more and more fading reminiscence, the data of my numerous journey adventures have principally been misplaced. And people had been the thrilling occasions — the humdrum days in between have been nearly solely condemned to the mists of time.

I don’t beat myself up about not maintaining a journal as a result of I do know I wouldn’t have caught with it. Having to sit down and write or sort for quarter-hour within the night would have fallen by the wayside fairly shortly. However current advances in AI have made me rethink this. Now, belatedly, I’m journaling day-after-day. It takes round two minutes earlier than mattress every night time to do it through Samsung Voice Recorder, and I even realized I can use it to avoid the premium plan on probably the greatest journaling apps.

After upgrading to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus final yr, I began taking part in round with the brand new Galaxy AI options. The AI transcription in Samsung Voice Recorder impressed me to use it for journaling. I’m conscious that some Android telephones have had stay transcription options for some time, however I used to be notably impressed with how shortly and simply Voice Recorder can each transcribe the voice notes after the very fact and use AI to tidy them up.

This received me 90% of the way in which in the direction of the plan of a fast mind dump every night, however I used to be additionally cautious of leaving the transcribed notes scattered about in an unordered trend. You may prepare them in classes in each Voice Recorder and Samsung Notes, however what I actually wished was an organized journal setup by which I simply dictate an entry, and it labels and shops it in an easy-to-reference approach later. The only choice was to use a journaling app with AI transcription baked in.

The Day One app match the invoice nearly completely. It’s a cultured journaling app standard on each iOS and Android that permits you to log textual content, photographs, and audio entries, plus it could actually sync throughout gadgets. The one snag was that, whereas the app has a free tier to file entries, you’ve gotten to pay for the premium plan if you need to use the transcription function. That left me with two imperfect options I may mix to meet my wants.

Now, every night, I do the next.

1. Open Voice Recorder and hit Report, then discuss my day for a minute or two.
2. Cease the recording and reserve it, then faucet on it and press Transcribe. A recording of that size takes round ten seconds to course of.
3. Faucet and maintain the textual content and choose Copy all.
4. Three faucets to exit Voice Recorder, open the Day One app, and press New entry.
5. Paste the textual content, and I’m completed.

The entire course of takes two to three minutes. Admittedly, the Galaxy AI transcriptions aren’t all the time excellent as I’m normally tiredly rambling into the cellphone. This isn’t a difficulty for me as I’m not planning to publish my memoirs. I simply need sufficient to jog my reminiscence, and it’s greater than satisfactory for that function.

For the file, I’m not in opposition to paying for premium plans on apps in the event that they’re providing a real profit — Duolingo is one instance of an app that has definitely completed effectively out of me financially. Day One is a good app, and I’d urge anybody who can profit from the premium tier to enroll if it suits your price range.

In my case, I’m simply minimally using the app whereas getting the one premium tier function I want without cost on my gadget. Virtually all the many premium perks would go unused if I signed up. At over $40 per yr, I discover that expense exhausting to justify. However I’ll allow you to decide my actions within the ballot beneath.

This setup may not work for everybody, however it’s been a game-changer for me. I’ve lastly discovered a low-effort approach to maintain monitor of my days, and it’s made me weirdly excited to look again at them sometime. If AI goes to take over our lives anyway, it would as effectively assist us bear in mind the great outdated days when it was only a novelty.