🍃 How to reduce your mom mental load with AI

Weighing a Mother’s Mental Load

How often do you wish your brain could just take a break? A little breather?

It’s a nice thought, usually interrupted by how laughably impossible it seems. As mothers, our mental load bogs us down. Many times, it feels like we’re drowning.

Mental load is the invisible weight of the thinking, planning, and strategizing required to keep a home and family running smoothly. 

Among other things, this includes:

• The appointments. All. The. Appointments.

• Meal-planning and grocery nightmares planning & lists

• School + extra-curricular activities + social events

More often than not, this weight falls disproportionately on moms. Add a scoop of responsibilities outside of the home, a neat sprinkle of societal expectations, and voilà! You’ve got a Burnout Banana Split.

AI to turn your brain dump into a crystal clear compilation

Experts suggest reducing mental load by dumping it out, usually via written to-do lists. Writing the avalanche of thoughts in my brain seems tedious. Plus, as a mother of 2 toddlers, here is what happens whenever I take out a pen and paper:

But everything changed last summer when I discovered Audiopen. 

The app is aptly named: Audiopen pens audio.

Specifically, you record a voice note, and the app uses AI to transcribe it, clean up the transcript, and output clean, clear text in a style of your choice.

Audiopen solved my brain dump problem. I would not have to resort to:

1. writing my brain dump, which would be tedious

2. recording my brain dump, to be buried forever in a voice note graveyard

3. transcribing my brain dump with a tool like Otter, which would output raw transcripts versus clear text

I started to use Audiopen to dump my thoughts as they came to me. And because voice notes are hands-free, I could brain dump while cooking, driving, and folding laundry.

Over time, I discovered new ways to unload my mental load with Audiopen. So much so that my brain has been able to breathe and do things I enjoy, like write weekly newsletters about AI for my fellow Ammis!

10 Proven Ways to Reduce Mental Load with Audiopen

Audiopen is free to use for 2-minute voice notes and a standard simple, clear writing style. You can store up to 10 notes on the app, but can easily copy notes to your preferred notes app like Google Keep, Notes, Google Doc, etc.

Audiopen Prime ($99 for 1 year, $159 for 2), is a game-changer. I get immediate value from the ability to record longer voice notes (up to 15 minutes) and choose the output style of the transcript: List, Formal Email, Kid-friendly, and even Custom Writing Styles.

Here are 10 ways I use Audiopen to save countless hours and precious mental energy.

These are possible in either version of the app. With the free version, you may have to record and string together multiple notes.

I will denote the specific output styles I use in the Prime version with ✨.

1. List-Making Made Simple

Morning and evenings are for brain dumping lists: to-do lists, grocery lists, packing lists for travel, idea lists, the list goes on…

✨ List  

2. Capturing Precious Thoughts on the Go
Don’t let your brilliant (and maybe not-so-brilliant) ideas vanish into thin air. Don’t let memorable moments fade. Don’t let entertaining improvised bedtime stories float into the night. Pull out your phone, hit record, and pen them down.

✨ Simple & Clear, Kid-friendly, Humorous

3. Crystal Clear Communications
Here’s my golden rule: anything that’s longer than 3 sentences will be written with Audiopen. Here’s what I have written:

• Emails

• Reviews and testimonials

• Any open-ended question on an online survey application or form.

• Long text messages

Also great for catching up with long-distance loved ones. If desired, you can replace mutli-part voice note updates with a written note.

I highly recommend downloading the Google Chrome extension to use Audiopen on your web browser. I haven’t written an email via typing in months. I speak it and tweak it:

✨ Casual Email, Casual Memo, Formal Email, Business Memo, Text a Friend

5. Quick Instructions and Knowledge Sharing 

Share your motherly wisdom or complex instructions without typing. I wrote a 3-page instruction document for my rabbit’s bunny-sitter with just 3 minutes of blabbing! AudioPen can help you create clear, concise instructions for family and colleagues.

✨ Simple & Clear, List

6. Saying 'No' with Ease

Protect your time by communicating boundaries clearly. AudioPen can help you say 'no' in a way that’s respectful yet firm.

✨ Simple & Clear

7. Collect Ammi’s Recipes, collect Grandparents’ life stories

Family recipes and history are heirlooms. Capture them seamlessly.

✨ Simple & Clear, List

8. Reflections, Journaling, Notes

Reinforce what you learn, and unload your thoughts and reflections.

✨ Custom Styles

9. Writing AI Prompts
It’s kind of Inception-esque, but you can use Audiopen to write prompts or instructions for AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity AI.

✨ Simple & Clear

10. Blogs, captions, newsletters, applications, reviews…you name it.
Don’t stare at a blank page ever again. The ‘anything-longer-than-3-sentences’ rule applies here. All my first drafts are written with Audiopen.

Here, I will definitely emphasize that no matter how good the output is or what rewriting style you set, it is still a draft. You will need to look over it and revise it. Everything needs a human touch.

✨ Custom Styles, Write Like Me, Simple & Clear

Over the last 230 days, I have saved hundreds of hours of my time and mental energy. You can, too, Ammi!

Thank you for spending a few of your precious, precious minutes with us.

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Ruqaiya
Ammi by day, Ammi by night