TellDone for writers & creators
The good line shows up in the shower. The plot fix lands on a walk. The perfect opening hits the second you turn off the light. Then it's gone. TellDone lets you say it out loud the moment it strikes and get back a clean, structured note in seconds, with any to-dos pulled out for you. You speak; we organize. We never rewrite your words.
Free plan, no credit card. iPhone, Apple Watch, and web.
Every writer has lost an idea this way. The frustration is rarely a lack of ideas. It's the gap between the spark and a place to put it.
Hands wet, eyes closed, halfway out the door. The further you are from a keyboard, the better the idea seems, and the faster it slips.
Stopping to thumb out a note pulls you out of the draft you're in. By the time you've typed it, the next sentence has wandered off.
You record a great riff, then it joins forty other untitled clips you'll never scrub through. Capture without follow-through is just a graveyard with timestamps.
A note that says “essay about small towns” isn't a draft. Ideas stay ideas because nothing turns them into a thing you'll actually do this week.
Some thoughts in Notes, some in a doc, some on paper by the bed. Six months later you can't find the one you needed.
You remember the gist, not the keyword. Plain search wants the exact phrase you used at 2 a.m. and never finds it.
Memory research has long shown that without some form of capture or review, we forget a large share of new information within a day (Hermann Ebbinghaus, the forgetting curve). For a fleeting idea, the window is far shorter. The fix isn't a better memory; it's a faster way to get the idea out of your head.
TellDone is a capture-and-planning tool, not a ghostwriter. It listens to what you say and hands back structure. Here's how that maps to the moments above.
Speak the idea out loud and get a structured note back in about 10 to 30 seconds, with any tasks, events, and reminders you mentioned pulled out. No typing, no stopping to organize. You can keep walking, keep drafting, keep your eyes closed.
Start a recording from Apple Watch when your phone's in another room, or from the Lock Screen, Control Center, or the Action Button. It works offline too, so a tunnel or a trail won't cost you the line.
Tag notes by project, character, column, or client. The novel stays separate from the newsletter, and a single recording can drop ideas into more than one thread.
Say “draft the intro by Friday” or “pitch this to the editor Monday” and TellDone creates the task or reminder with the deadline attached. Recurring ones work too, like a weekly idea review. Send them to Apple Reminders, Todoist, Things 3, Google Tasks, or Notion.
Semantic search works by meaning, not just exact words. Search “that idea about a lonely lighthouse keeper” and it surfaces the note even if you never wrote those words down.
The transcript of what you said is read-only. TellDone never paraphrases, polishes, or invents text in your voice. It structures the note around your words and leaves the raw idea intact, so your phrasing is there when you sit down to write. Tap to fix a date or a tag; there's no Save button and a quick Undo. Got it wrong? Record a follow-up and the note updates.
One writer, one ordinary Tuesday, nothing lost.
The ending finally clicks. You reach out, tap your Apple Watch, and say it before the water's off. By the time you're dry, it's a note titled and waiting.
A side thought interrupts the scene you're writing. Instead of breaking flow to jot it, you speak ten seconds into your phone and keep typing. It lands as a tagged note under the right project.
Three column ideas arrive at once. You ramble them all into one recording. TellDone splits them into separate notes and adds “pitch the second one to the editor by Thursday” as a reminder. Sparks, now with a deadline.
The opening line for tomorrow shows up as you drift off. You whisper it from the Lock Screen. No lamp, no laptop, no losing it by morning.
You search “the small-town essay angle” and the week's notes surface in your exact words, ready to become a draft. The blank page isn't blank.
Speak the next idea the moment it lands. Get it back as a note you can actually use.
Free plan, no credit card required.