I wanted this week to talk about what is rapidly becoming one of my favorite web services. The funny part is, that I almost never visit the site. The service is called Jott, and if you are not familiar with the service, allow me to gush for a few minutes about what an awesome idea it is, and some of the ways I have put this site to good use, including one way that it patched one of my leaks in my GTD system.

What is Jott?

Jott calls itself a mobile note taking service. It is in Beta (what isn’t?), and free to register.  When you register for a Jott account, you associate your account with a cell phone number (though I suspect you could do it with a land line, but why, man, why?).  Jott provides you a 1-866 number that you call to access the service. When you call Jott, it matches your cell phone number up to your account, and then it allows you to speak a message to it, which it then transcribes from voice into text. The transcription, does not need to be trained, and its accuracy is quite good. It does get hung up on technical jargon and proper nouns. When it does not fully understand a word, it makes a reasonable guess and appends a question mark to the word, to let you know that it was a guess. In case the transcription is not good enough, all Jott messages come with a link to an mp3 of the actual text spoken to it, so that the recipient can listen to the message as well.

When you create a message, you can send that message in a number of different ways. The primary methods are by email and text message. Your Jott account has an address book where you set up a contact list, providing it with email addresses and cell phone numbers. You can import your addressbook from a number of different sources, including Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. When you call into Jott, it will ask you who you would like to Jott, you say a name and it will find the entry from your address book.

In addition to sending email and text messages to individuals, Jott allows you to create groups from your list of addresses. You can then dictate a message, and send it to an entire group. This works out great if you are coordinating with a group of friends and wish to send out a quick text message and get everyone at once. I am sure that many cell phone providers have group texting, but how many let you just talk into the phone, and create a group text message for you?

Jott also has API hooks for interfacing with a number of web services. The full list is available on their site, but some of the services include, the ability to blog via Jott if you are using WordPress or Blogger. If you are Twitter user, you can Jott directly to Twitter . On Sunday, I set up my Jott account to allow me to submit a blog article right from Jott. This can be a useful tool if you are running a blog and need to make a post, and you are long way from a computer.

Jott and GTD

So I started this article talking about how Jott seals a large leak in my GTD system. I like to think that I am a pretty devout follower of GTD.  I fully subscribe to the belief that your memory is no place to be storing your todo list.  At work and at home, I have my Moleskine notebook close at hand, but one place where I am lacking, is when I am out of the office and the house. I don’t often carry my Moleskine with me.  Even the pocket notebook is still a bit large for me to be carrying in my pocket. I don’t like to carry a lot of stuff on my person if I am out shopping, other than the usual: keys, wallet, cellphone, etc.

In the past, I would be out shopping and think of something I needed to do, and not have something to write it down on, and I would be forced to try to remember the task. More often than not, by the time I got home, I totally forgot about what it was I was going to do.  I tried to use the voice recorder on my cell phone, but then I forget that I recorded the message, and I never listen to it and put it into my system.

One of the central pieces of my GTD system is the online service Remember The Milk (RTM). I love their list management software, and I have made RTM the central warehouse for all my todo lists. One of the features that RTM offers is that you can email tasks to your account, using a special email address. I took that email address and created an entry in my Jott address book for it. Now when I am out, and I think of something that I need to do, I call Jott. I then have it transcribe my message and send it directly to RTM via email. The next time I log into RTM, the message from Jott is sitting in my Inbox, and ready to be processed.

Now as long as I have my cell phone, which I always do, I can always add something to my todo list, and get it out of my head; where as we know is no place to be keeping reminders for tasks.

Have you tried Jott? If not, what are you waiting for?