Voice to Text for Obsidian
Your best ideas come when you're away from the keyboard. In the shower. On a walk. Mid-conversation. Blurt lets you capture those fleeting thoughts directly into Obsidian before they disappear. Hold a button, speak your idea, release. Text appears in your note, ready for linking and tagging. No friction between thought and capture. Your second brain grows faster when you can think out loud.
The Typing Problem
Fleeting thoughts vanish before you can type them
You're reading an article and suddenly see a connection to three other notes. By the time you switch to Obsidian and start typing, the thought has fragmented. You capture half of it, poorly worded. The brilliant insight that felt so clear moments ago is now a confusing sentence you'll delete next week during review.
Daily notes become a chore instead of a habit
You know daily notes are valuable. You've seen the Zettelkasten workflows, read the blog posts, watched the YouTube tutorials. But typing out your morning thoughts takes 15 minutes you don't have. So you skip it. Then skip it again. That daily note habit you wanted to build never sticks because the friction is too high.
Creating atomic notes feels like too much work
The Zettelkasten method says to write one idea per note in your own words. But after a long research session, writing out 10 separate atomic notes means 20 more minutes of typing. You tell yourself you'll do it later. Later never comes. Your vault stays full of unprocessed highlights instead of connected ideas.
Linking thoughts requires typing the same context twice
You want to add a note about how concept A relates to concept B. But first you have to explain concept A again in this new context. And concept B. Then finally the relationship. What should be a quick insight becomes a paragraph of setup. You start skipping links because they take too long to document properly.
Your vault grows slower than your reading list
Books pile up. Articles get saved to read-later apps. Podcasts queue endlessly. But your Obsidian vault barely grows because turning consumption into notes requires too much effort. The gap between what you've learned and what you've captured keeps widening. Your second brain is starving while your first brain forgets everything.
How It Works
Blurt works directly in Obsidian — in your notes, daily journals, canvas, anywhere you can place a cursor. No plugins needed.
Hold your hotkey
Press your chosen shortcut. A small indicator shows Blurt is listening.
Think out loud
Speak your thought, insight, or connection. Blurt handles punctuation automatically.
Release and continue
Text appears in your note. Add your links and tags, or keep capturing more thoughts.
Real Scenarios
Capturing ideas during morning pages
Your morning coffee ritual includes daily notes, but typing interrupts the flow of consciousness. With Blurt, you hold the button and stream your thoughts directly into today's note. 'Had a dream about the project deadline. Reminds me of that GTD concept about open loops causing mental overhead. Need to close the loop on the budget proposal.' Three connected thoughts captured in 10 seconds, ready for linking.
Building your Zettelkasten while reading
You're reading a book and hit a passage that connects to your existing notes. Instead of bookmarking it for later, hold the button and speak: 'This confirms my note on spaced repetition. The author's point about retrieval practice links to both active recall and desirable difficulties.' The atomic note is captured instantly, in your own words, while the connection is fresh.
Quick daily note entries throughout the day
Something happens worth noting but you're in the middle of other work. Open your daily note, hold the button: 'Interesting conversation with Sarah about customer onboarding. She mentioned the aha moment usually happens in week two, not day one. Tag for user research and customer success.' Note captured in 5 seconds. Back to what you were doing.
Explaining connections between linked notes
You've linked two notes but the relationship needs context. Hold and speak: 'This concept of compound interest applies to knowledge management too. Each note in the vault makes future notes more valuable because there are more connection points. See also network effects and Metcalfe's Law.' The link now has meaning, not just a bidirectional arrow.
Processing highlights from articles and books
You've got 20 highlights from a Kindle book sitting in your vault. Instead of typing summaries for each, hold the button and explain what each highlight means to you: 'This quote about deliberate practice connects to my teaching philosophy note. The key insight is that quality of practice matters more than hours invested.' Highlights become atomic notes in a fraction of the time.
Brainstorming on Obsidian Canvas
You're mapping ideas on Canvas and need to add context to nodes quickly. Click a card, hold the button, speak your thought. Click the next card, repeat. 'This represents the input stage. Connects to GTD capture phase. Should flow into the processing node on the right.' Your canvas fills with substantive content instead of single-word labels.
Recording meeting notes that actually get processed
During a call, you need to capture action items and ideas without losing focus on the conversation. Quick button press: 'Follow up with design team about the new onboarding flow. Sarah's point about week two activation is key. Link to customer journey map note.' Notes captured live, already formatted for your vault, no post-meeting transcription marathon.
Why Obsidian users choose Blurt over built-in dictation
| Blurt | macOS Dictation | |
|---|---|---|
| Activation | Single hotkey, instant start | Click microphone or double-tap Fn key |
| Speed | Text appears in under 500ms | 2-3 second delay before transcription |
| Reliability | Consistent accuracy every time | Often fails silently or mishears |
| Natural speech | Handles thinking-out-loud style well | Works best with formal dictation style |
Frequently Asked Questions
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