Pain: having no simple way to export Audible “clips” as text, especially while on the go (which is the context for most of my listening).
Two solutions that work but weren’t quite simple enough for me:
- Convert clips to text using a combo of apps. 1) combine all clips from a book as an .mp3 file and 2) use software to transcribe that .mp3 into text.
- Highlight the text you want in the Kindle version. Get the book on both Audible and on Kindle. In Kindle, locate and highlight each clip from Audible (use WhisperSync if it’s available for your book to avoid having to manually search). Capture highlights however you’d like, and sync Kindle with an app like Readwise to have highlights sent to your email periodically for review.
My current solution: Google Assistant’s “Take a Note” voice command.
Since most of my listening is on the go, I need as few “touches” as possible between hearing the words I want to capture and having those words available in some kind of text file. Without knowing how to write code, I used Tim Ferriss’s “If this were simple, what would it look like?” rule, which led me to wish I could say “take a note”. Well, turns out Google Assistant does that pretty well. Here’s the flow:
- While listening to an audiobook (walking/driving/etc.), activate Google Assistant (e.g. saying “Hey Google” while wearing earbuds that can activate Google Assistant).
- Say, “Take a note.”
- After Google says “Ok, what’s the note?” Tell it what you want to have captured as text.
- Get the notes from the Keep Notes app.
This way I’m not having to look at my phone at all. The downside is I have to interrupt the audio to take the note but, in a way, that ensures I understand the important idea well enough to repeat it to Google Assistant (hopefully like the “teach” part of “see one, do one, teach one”).