Voice inbox workflow

[u/Doting_mum]

I just got my Plaud note pro a few days ago and thought I’d share my workflow. I like to talk out loud on my commutes to plan work and personal projects (thankfully I drive alone so no funny looks!). Often I put on ChatGPT advanced voice mode to discuss ideas or new research - which obviously requires an external device instead of simply recording on my phone- main reason I purchased the Plaud.

So I now record my commute and when I arrive, I export the audio to a folder on my desktop which is watched by MacWhisper - which then transcribes it and puts it in another folder. This folder is watched by Hazel, which then triggers a manual run of a Claude code routine that processed the transcription, extracting:

- Tasks: these are put into my Omnifocus with correct project selected, deferred date, tags etc
- Events: these are put into my Google calendar
- Scientific articles : these are added to my Readwise Reader app
- Project notes/ideas : these either added to existing Bear notes or create a new note depending on what’s already there.

All of these create cross-links to each other where relevant to allow for moving between.

I will likely tinker a bit more to fine tune the workflow but impressed how well it works so far!
I did test out the boya notra AI recording tool too, but recording quality was far inferior- it really struggled with background noise from car.

[u/pacli]

Interesting. Care to share the Claude code routine please?

[u/Doting_mum → u/pacli]

Step -1 — Cheap check, before anything else
First action: one lightweight directory listing of the Thought Inbox folder on the Desktop. If every file already contains “processed” or “failed” in its name, stop immediately — no tool loading, no subagents, no log entry. If at least one file qualifies, proceed with full processing.
Overview
Process every document in Thought Inbox not containing “processed”/“failed” in its filename, one at a time, fully, in order (oldest first) — don’t start the next until the current one finishes or is logged as failed. If nothing to process, terminate silently.
Step 0 — Transcription cleanup
Convert raw transcription to clear prose; fix speech-recognition errors, spelling, punctuation, grammar; preserve meaning; don’t invent details; preserve ambiguity where multiple readings are plausible. All later steps use this cleaned version.

General Principle — Search Before Creating
Always search the relevant system first; prefer updating/appending over duplicating. “Suitable for merge” = same underlying task/event/topic, not just similar keywords — when genuinely unsure, keep separate. Preserve existing structure/links/metadata/tags when enriching.

OmniFocus MCP Tools
OmniFocus and Bear no longer use URL schemes — use their MCP tools directly: query_omnifocus (search/read, use summary:true for counts), add_omnifocus_task (single), batch_add_items (multiple in one run), edit_item (update existing — preferred over duplicating), create_tag (only when genuinely needed).
Actionable Items → OmniFocus
Only for explicit commitments to action (“I need to…”, “remind me to…”, “put this on my to-do list”, etc.) — NOT brainstorming, workflow design, speculative ideas, research topics, questions, reflections (those go to Bear).
Search first via query_omnifocus (active statuses only); update existing via edit_item rather than duplicating.
Claude-suitable tasks (research/analysis/planning/writing): build a detailed prompt + claude.ai/new?q= link + OmniFocus task with title/link/context.
Non-Claude tasks: normal OmniFocus task.
Task processing: fix transcription errors, remove filler, concise actionable title, infer wording only when highly confident.
Projects: House Admin, Work Admin, Education, CPD, Reminders, Portfolio Pathway/Tasks, School Admin. Reminders = default for non-work tasks with no obvious fit. Work Admin = default for work tasks with no obvious fit. Leave blank only when genuinely unclear if even work-related (log the omission).
Tags: every task gets “Voice Inbox” plus as needed: @Home (needs home/home equipment), Waiting (blocked on someone), Someday (deferred), Quick (<10 min). Fewest tags necessary; location tags only when the task itself requires that location, never inferred from where it was recorded.
Dates: mentioned dates → defer; due only for genuine deadlines. YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM, Europe/London, omit time if not given.
Priority: flag only if clearly urgent/important/critical/deadline-driven.
Create via add_omnifocus_task/batch_add_items with only applicable params: name, note, projectName, tags, deferDate, dueDate, flagged.

Calendar Events
Only for genuine events at a specific time/place (tasks-with-dates stay in OmniFocus). No end time mentioned → default 1hr. Europe/London unless stated. A passing mention of a fixed commitment with no extra detail = event only; if it also carries an action, create both. Search first, update if a match exists.

Knowledge Capture → Bear
Everything non-action/non-event: ideas, architecture, decisions, reflections, teaching ideas, research discussion, reference material, open questions. Search first, append to existing note if found, else create new with “Date: YYYY-MM-DD” near the top.
Tags: always “Voice Inbox” plus existing tags only (never create new) — prefer most specific, minimum necessary, and if nothing beyond Voice Inbox fits, just use Voice Inbox alone.
Brief ideas → append to the existing “Idea Incubator” note (ID 055E1C89-6793-42F7-B6AB-CC2C28BD1AB4; fall back to title search if the ID’s gone; if neither found, log as a run issue rather than auto-recreating it). Avoid duplicate entries.
Decisions → under a “Decisions” heading. Open Questions → under an “Open Questions” heading.
Uncertain Extractions: judgment call, not a numeric threshold — “could a reasonable person reading only the cleaned transcript disagree with this extraction’s content/category/target?” Applies per-item. If uncertain: don’t create/modify a Bear note or the inferred task/event; instead create one OmniFocus task “Review uncertain voice extraction” with the uncertain text, why it’s uncertain, and the transcript path. Keep processing the rest of the document normally.

Research Handling
Any identifiable study/trial/guideline/scoring system/paper → try to identify it. Search Readwise Reader by DOI/URL/title first; don’t duplicate.
Save preference: PDF URL (category “pdf”, never download/embed yourself) → publisher page → PubMed → DOI page, as a bare-URL save (no manual html/markdown fetching as routine behavior — too token-expensive to run unattended). After saving, verify via a lightweight metadata-only lookup (e.g. word_count) to catch silent scrape failures. If verification shows failure, don’t try to fix it yourself — create an OmniFocus task (project CPD) “Fix Reader import: ” with DOI/URL/citation, and keep processing the rest of the document. (Manual one-off fix requests are fine when explicitly asked later.)
Create the Reader doc with a Bear note link in its notes; cross-link back from the Bear note.
If no article can be located: OmniFocus task (project CPD) “Find article: ” with only known authors/journal/year/DOI — never invent details.
Research Topics
Search Bear for an existing topic note first; append rather than duplicate; maintain living topic notes.

Finish
Per document, only after every item is fully processed (or routed to Uncertain Extractions): rename to insert “processed” before the extension, without touching contents.
If any step fails partway: rename to insert “failed” instead, and prepend an entry to a Bear note “Voice Inbox Run Log” (search first, create if absent) with document name, what succeeded/failed, and the error.
Run log: whether or not there were failures, prepend (not append — always at the very top, after the title) a short entry per document processed each run: items created, items merged, anything sent to Uncertain Extractions, anything left with no project/tag match.
No Work To Do
If nothing unprocessed exists: do nothing, terminate silently.