Because I work from home and do 98% of my work on the telephone with the support of email communications, I spend a lot of time on my computer. A few weeks ago I was suddenly overwhelmed. I review marketing plans for people in my Get Clients Now! tele-class programs. With 2 programs running, I had a lot of plans to review on top of my usual email interactions. By 3 or 4 pm each day, I just couldn’t type any more.
A friend with carpal tunnel syndrome told me about Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.0, a software program that allows you to speak into a headset with your email program open. It does the transcription and purports to transcribe your words up to 99% accuracy. After a couple of weeks of research I decided to purchase it as another Get Clients Now! program was about to start.
It’s been a week now, and it’s working! I won’t tell you that it’s all that much faster than when I type. As an introvert, typing keeps pace with my thinking. But, when I’m flowing, it goes quickly, too. I sometimes stutter (I found out) when I’m composing my thoughts, so I have to take time to correct it’s attempts to come up with real words when this happens. (Once, I even yelled “shut up!” at my dog, forgetting my headset was on.) However, the more I work with it, the more it “learns” to recognize how I speak and the words I use.
It’s more relaxing than typing, too. I found I could review a report a client sent me and dictate my feedback without twisting around, back and forth, in my chair.
Costs? From www.amazon.com, $139 (I got the Preferred edition so I could use it with Office programs and on the Internet.) Additional memory for my computer: $60 and a more comfortable headset: $50. Impact on my welfare and ability to do my work: priceless.
In one of the chapters in our book, we talk about some of the things that make it easier for women with auto immune diseases to start a business and work from home. Dragon NaturallySpeaking would definitely be one of them, especially if your illness makes it hard to use your hands and a keyboard. I imagine it would be a viable resource when working for a company as well, though I wonder how it would work in a cubicle situation.
Joan
I tried Dragon a few years ago and found that it made too many mistakes and was too cumbersome. Sounds like they have improved it a lot. I think I’ll give it another try. Thanks.
FYI, Microsoft Office products have this built into them already. So, you can do this without additional expense if you use Office at work! That was helpful to me when requesting this solution to hand pain and tremors.’
Julie