Match capture tool to content type — text for words, voice…
Match capture modality to information structure: use text for sequential verbal content, voice when hands are occupied, and photographs for spatial or visual information.
When This Fires
- Deciding how to capture an insight, observation, or piece of information
- Noticing that certain types of information consistently get lost
- Setting up capture workflows for different contexts (desk, commute, meetings)
- Any situation where the default capture method feels slow or lossy
Common Failure Mode
Defaulting to text for everything, including spatial and visual information. Describing a system architecture diagram in words takes 5 minutes and loses structural relationships. Photographing it takes 2 seconds and preserves everything. Similarly, typing notes while walking is slow and dangerous; voice capture is faster and preserves the associative flow.
The Protocol
Before capturing, ask: "What is the structure of this information?" (1) Sequential/verbal (an argument, a list, instructions) → text. (2) Associative/flowing (a stream of connected ideas, hands occupied) → voice. (3) Spatial/visual (a diagram, a physical layout, a screen state) → photograph. (4) Mixed → use the dominant modality and supplement. A voice memo with a photo of the whiteboard captures both the verbal reasoning and the spatial structure.