s-t-f-u.com/voice-notes
Please stop sending voice notes
You recorded four minutes. I have to listen to four minutes. There is no skimming a voice note.
A voice note is fast to make and slow to consume. That trade is fine when it's yours to make and someone else's to absorb, which is exactly the problem.
Text can be read in eight seconds, searched next Tuesday, and understood on a loud train. Audio can't do any of that.
Why it lands badly
It moves the work to them
Thirty seconds of your time becomes four minutes of theirs, plus finding headphones.
It can't be skimmed
The one useful sentence is somewhere in the middle and there's no way to find it but to listen to all of it.
It disappears
Nobody has ever successfully searched their chat history for a voice note.
Do this instead
Type it
If it's under three sentences, it was always a text.
Send audio plus a summary
One line of text on top: "tl;dr — Thursday works." Now the audio is optional.
Just call
If it's genuinely complicated, a two-minute call beats a four-minute monologue in both directions.
When it's completely fine
You're driving, walking, cooking, or your hands are otherwise busy. You're saying something that needs tone — comfort, apology, actual joy. It's under thirty seconds. It's to someone who's told you they like them.
Questions people ask
- Isn't this a bit precious?
- Possibly. It's still four minutes.
- What if I think faster than I type?
- Great — dictate it, then send the transcript.