You don't have to be at a desk to use it

Coaching doesn't happen at a keyboard

Everything in this newsletter so far has assumed you're sitting at a computer. Program cards, projects, spreadsheets, scheduled tasks. All of it useful, and all of it built around desk time you don't get much of.

Your actual day looks nothing like that. You're on the floor, you're setting up, you're walking between groups, you're in the car. The ideas show up in those moments too, usually at the worst possible time, and if you wait too long to save them you forget the thought.

Talking is faster than typing, and it works better

Voice input is a feature I use constantly because talking through something out loud produces a different quality of thinking than typing does.

Four things it's good for:

• Talking through a problem. You say the whole messy version, the parts you're unsure about, the thing you've already tried, the constraint you're stuck on. Talking gets all of it out in the way you'd explain it to another coach. Typing that same thing means editing while you think, which may cause you to lose your train of thought on a long message.
• Turning jumbled thoughts into something organized. Talk for two minutes about what's in your head, then ask for it back as an outline or a brief. You're not asking AI to think for you. You're handing it the raw version and getting structure back.
• Explaining what you want instead of typing it. When you need something built, describing it out loud in thirty seconds beats spending five minutes writing the same request. You'll also include more detail, because you're not editing your thoughts as you type.
• Catching an idea before it disappears. Something hits you between sessions. Say it, leave it, come back when you have time. The whole point is not losing it. Unlike a note, you can pick the conversation back up when you have time. Driving is the scenario that comes up the most for me. The amount of ideas I've lost because I got to the building and immediately started setting things up for the day and forgot to write a thought down pains me at times.

Your phone camera is an input too

This one I haven't used much myself, but it might be more useful than voice for some coaches.

You can photograph something and hand it over. The whiteboard after a staff meeting, page from a book you're reading, handwritten program notes, a screenshot of something on your phone. AI reads what's in the image and works from there.

Think about where paper still lives in your program. Notes you took at a clinic that never got typed up. A drawing you made explaining a drill. Someone else's session plan you were handed. All of that is stuck in a format you can't do anything with, a photo moves it into one you can.

The obvious use is transcription, turning the whiteboard into text. The better use is what comes after. Photograph your clinic notes and ask what applies to your setting. Photograph a page you underlined and ask questions about it. It's the interactive notebook from a few issues back, except you're starting from paper instead of a transcript.

Same rule as always on athlete data. Don't photograph anything with names, medical information, or anything else you wouldn't hand to a stranger.

Inside the Lab

Voice input is the microphone icon in the app on both Claude and ChatGPT. Photo input is the attachment or camera button. Both are on free plans in both tools.

One thing that makes voice work better: talk like you're explaining it to someone, not like you're writing a prompt. The full messy version is better input than a cleaned up one.

Where the coach stays in charge

The point of capturing fast is that you can go back to it later. This only matters if you actually take the time to revisit your thoughts. An idea you talked through and never came back to is the same as an idea you forgot.

The Coach's Scouting Report

• Signal. The best ideas show up when you're nowhere near a keyboard. Voice and camera are how you catch them.
• Noise. Typing out something you could say in thirty seconds. Letting paper notes sit in a format you can't use.
• Next Rep. Next drive home, talk through one thing you've been stuck on. Say the whole messy version, then ask for it back as an outline. After that, find one page of handwritten notes and photograph it into a conversation.

See you next Sunday.