Let’s say you’re having trouble articulating your thoughts about a particular topic you want to write about, present about, or record a video about.

For those who’ve gone through Note-Making Mastery, you know that one of your first steps might involve looking through what’s already in your central hub or second brain.

Often times you go there to realize you’ve already written bits and pieces on the topic. You just need to connect, in a cohesive narrative, what you’ve already done the work to collect.

But what if there’s nothing there yet?

Maybe you’re in the beginning stages of gestating a new idea. You want to write it down but you know your fingers won’t be able to keep up with your brain.

You could record yourself on your phone, but then there’s the chore of getting it out of your phone later, not to mention being able to make sense of your ramblings.

Enter a new app (currently for iOS only and in beta) called OASIS.

OASIS records your voice, instantly transcribes what you said, AND instantly offers several use cases for coherently sharing those ideas. The interface is simple and looks like this.

I used it to record about a minute’s worth of thoughts for the very email you’re reading right now. As soon as I tapped “Stop,” I had this on my screen (never mind that Read is spelled as REED):

What I might do next, is copy and paste the transcript into ChatGPT and precede the transcript with a prompt that looks something like this (hat tip to Dan Shipper for the prompt):

This is a transcript from a writer talking about ideas they might turn into pieces of writing. Please summarize the ideas they had in bullet point form. Don’t include ideas that don’t make grammatical sense or might have been mistranscribed. If there is anything like that, include it in a separate section labeled: Scratch

In fact, I did just that. Here’s what ChatGPT gave me in response:

Ideas:

• Explaining the OASIS app to members of the REED to lead community
• Using a central hub or second brain to connect past writing about a topic into a cohesive narrative
• Starting the writing process by recording thoughts on a phone to avoid finger fatigue

Scratch: None.

Admittedly, this output was not particularly useful in this one-minute sample, but imagine you’ve rambled for several minutes. The more ChatGPT (and OASIS) has to work with the better.

If your transcript is initially difficult to dissect, popping it into ChatGPT with a prompt similar to the one above could make a world of difference in helping you parse your thoughts and ideas, and give you places to go you hadn’t yet thought of.

Back to OASIS.

With just that one-minute ramble recorded into OASIS, I not only got an instant transcript but also suggestions for how I might share my ideas (again, probably more useful with more ramblings):

I scroll up to see a suggestion for a LinkedIn post and a sample text message. If I want to “remix” these initial iterations, I can tap the remix button on the right (or favorite the result, share the result, or copy the result for pasting elsewhere).

As I continue to scroll up, I see that OASIS has also created a “Professional Email,” an “Explain Like I’m Five” message, a “Clarity” sample, a Twitter thread (though there’s not much more than a single sentence with hashtags,) an Outline, and a Blog Post.

All in just a few seconds!

Again, my example is a short one but, for context, here’s the Blog Post that came from my ramblings:

Needless to say, if you’re the type of person who prefers thinking out loud over typing or writing down your ideas by hand, at least at the outset, I encourage you to check into OASIS (scroll down for details).

Have a great weekend,

Jeff

***

To add your name to the OASIS waitlist, just go here.

I added my email address just this morning and received a text almost immediately inviting me in. You’ll likely be expedited if you take their survey, as I did.

The app is currently in private beta.

This means that if you do get the go-ahead to jump in, you’ll need to download the Test Flight app from the Apple store first.

There are also occasional “at capacity” issues they’re working through.

Again, it’s in beta, so just be patient. 🙂