The video provides a practical, step-by-step tutorial for a useful automation that solves a common problem for content creators and anyone who needs to capture ideas quickly. The clear demonstration and promise of a pre-built shortcut (available via link or comment) make it highly shareable and valuable.
Summary
The creator demonstrates how to build a custom iOS shortcut to streamline the process of capturing ideas and transcribing audio notes. The shortcut allows users to quickly record audio, automatically transcribe it, and append it to a specific note category, saving time and improving idea organization.
Structure
1Introduce the problem: ideas get lost due to slow capture.
2Showcase the solution: a custom iOS shortcut.
3Detail the setup: creating note categories in the Notes app.
4Build the shortcut: adding 'Choose from Menu', 'Record Audio', 'Transcribe Audio', and 'Append to Note' actions.
Original caption
Your ideas don’t die because you’re forgetful. They die because filing them takes too long. By the time you unlock, find Notes, scroll, and tap the right one, the thought’s gone. So I built one button that catches it and files it for me. Here’s the build: 1. In Notes, create the notes this will feed. Mine are Raw Thoughts, Meeting Gems, AI Prompts, Content Ideas. 2. Open Shortcuts, hit the plus, search Choose from Menu. Prompt: Which note. Add your four options. 3. Under Raw Thoughts, add Record Audio and change start recording to Immediately. Then Transcribe Audio, tap and hold Audio File, pick Recorded Audio. 4. Add Append to Note. Tap and hold the text field, pick Current Date, type a hyphen, then Transcribed Audio. Point it at your Raw Thoughts note. 5. For the other three, add Ask for Input, then Append to Note with Current Date, hyphen, Ask for Input. Point each at its matching note. 6. Share button, Add to Home Screen, name it Quick Note. Drop it on your Lock Screen too. Tap Raw Thoughts and it’s already listening. You talk, it writes it down and files it with the date. You didn’t pick a folder, didn’t add a date, didn’t tell yourself you’d organize it later. That’s the difference between having notes and having a system. Don’t want to build it? Grab mine in the bio and customize the buckets to whatever fits your life. iPhone shortcuts tutorial, Apple Shortcuts note taking, quick capture shortcut, voice to text notes, iPhone automation, Apple Notes automation, second brain iPhone, how to capture ideas fast. #appleshortcuts #iphonetips #applenotes #iphoneautomation #productivitytips
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More breakout videos from this creator.
5
Configure the actions: setting immediate recording and using transcribed audio/current date variables.
6Add shortcut to home screen and lock screen for quick access.
7Demonstrate the shortcut's functionality and benefits.
Call to action
Comment the word quick notes and I'll send it right to you.
On-screen text
ELITE LEVEL
APPLE NOTES
USAGE
Transcript
Elite level Apple Notes usage that will rewire your brain and make you the genius in every room that you step in. I built one button that can capture pretty much every idea that comes into my head. And with this button, four notes are available right at the tip of my fingertips. And one of them, I don't even have to tight. I'm going to build the whole thing on screen, so stay here with me. Your ideas don't die because you're forgetful. They die because getting them out of your head takes way too long. By the time you find the right spot, they're gone or you are just putting them in random places. We're going to cut that down to one time. Let's go. To get started with this shortcut, you want to go to the notes app and you want to create the main notes that you want this to be set up with. Mine are raw thoughts, meeting gems, AI prompts and content ideas. For the raw thoughts, we're going to use audio to go straight to text in this particular notes section. So let's get started. We want to go to the shortcuts app and you want to click on the push button in the top right-hand corner and you want to start by searching for select from menu. I'm sorry, choose from menu. Here, under the prompt you're going to say which note and under the options, we're going to do raw thoughts because that's the name of the that's the name of the uh note and you're going to do the other notes as well. Now that we have the menu items selected. Now you want to add the action items under those selections. Under raw thoughts. what we're going to do is we're going to search for record audio. We're going to drag that under raw going to change it uh hit the drop down menu and you're going to change start recording to immediately. This way whenever you hit the raw thoughts option, it automatically starts recording. The next option is going to be transcribed audio. We're going to drag that to under the audio recording. Under the audio file, you're going to tap audio file and hold and then you'll see the selection to select recorded audio. Once you do that, it's going to change the recorded audio into text. The next thing you want to do is search for a pin to note. And you want to drag a pin to note right under there. Now, the text area you're going to tap and hold on text and then you're going to select transcribed audio. This is going to place the text right into that note automatically. Uh, what you can do also in this area. We're going to hit under text. We're going to tap and hold on text and then you're going to select current date. And then we're going to put a hi-fi and then we're going to tap transcribed audio. This way the date that you recorded the audio and the transcribed came there will be there right before the beginning of the transcription, okay? Next, we're going to these other areas are going to be text input, so we're going to search for act for input. And we're going to do that all three times. And then under prompt, you're just going to put notes just to make it simple. All right. So all these options whenever you tap on them is going to ask you for a text some notes, something to put it in place. Now, we're going to search for a pin to note. You're going to drag it there. Tap and hold on the text and you're going to select on an input variable. Once that once that button shows up that says actual input, tap that and it's going to automatically put it there. Here under note. we want to tap and we're going to select swipe down here on this menu. We're going to select current date. and you're going to scroll back to the front after put it in a high-five and you're going to tap act for input. This way the current date and that input is going to be there. and we're going to do this for each one of the the notes, okay? Now, this is how we're going to add the notes to each one of the selections. You're going to tap and tap on the word note and then just select the note in the list. This one is going to be meeting. This one's going to be a I pro. Last one is going to be content idea. Now, when you press the play button in the bottom right hand corner, it's I'm going to ask you for which option you want to add to. Let's type rock tap right now. Let's tap raw thoughts and show you the diction tool. Taping on raw thoughts. Here in today's video, we're going to be walking everyone through blah blah blah, blah blah blah. This is just an explanation and demonstration on how this will work. After you tap on the screen, it'll show you down the bottom because you're in preview mode, you'll see today's date, the time, iPhone and then the note. But most of all, if you go to your notes app and you go to Raw Thoughts, you'll see the date and the thought. Everything that you just said is right here in text mode. Now, going back to shortcuts, what you can see is what you can do next is adding it to your desktop. Hit the the square with the arrow pointing up on top. You want to hit the add to home screen. You're going to change this to quick note. It add, boom. And now quick note is added right to your desktop. But it doesn't end there. Now you can actually also add it to your home screen. So you want to tap a hole on the empty home screen there and then tap customize, remove one of the widgets from the screen and you're going to add the shortcuts widget. You can tap on that widget and make sure that you click on the one that we just created, which mind still showing up is shoes from a new one. So I'm going to select that one just to show you. You hit done. And now from the lock screen, you can do all those actions that you just completed inside the series shortcuts. So that one option that I was telling you about was the raw thoughts option. All you do is tap, talk and it types everything for you and files it all at once. And here's the real thing. You only have to organize it once. And after And to that, everything is available after one tap. That's the difference between having notes and having a system. Hey, if you don't want to build this thing yourself, please just go download it from the link in my bio or comment the word quick notes and I'll send it right to you. It's pay what you want or free if you need it.
