Being ‘In the Zone’

For the past couple of weeks I have had a stream of typing work and, unusually, a large part of it has been copy typing rather than the audio typing that makes up quite a significant proportion of my regular work. I have noticed that when I am typing my brain seems to switch into an almost meditative state as I’m transferring the words onto my computer screen.

My initial reaction would be to say that I am ‘in the zone’ or ‘experiencing flow’, although I’d question whether I have the necessary joy and rapture required for that definition by Wikipedia, but it is certainly a positive feeling.

Wikipedia goes on to state that there are three necessary conditions to obtain flow. You must have:

1. A clear set of goals;
2. Confidence that the task can be achieved;
3. Immediate feedback from the task in hand to gauge progress.

Looking at these, it becomes apparent why flow is a positive experience, but how often are those criteria not met in the work that we undertake? Do you set out clear goals at the start of a project to at least get started, even if the requirements later change? Do you have a system for giving and receiving feedback? I will be the first to admit that I don’t always manage to achieve these, but will certainly be making more of an effort in future.

So what about you? Do you get into the zone and, if so, what activities do it for you?

Top tips to get good transcriptions

As a virtual assistant, one of the services I offer is transcription. Occasionally a potential client will query the rates I charge on the grounds that it’s ‘easy enough’ to type up what someone is saying. Usually these recordings end up being the worst type to transcribe because no thought went into how they were recorded. If, however, you know that you will be paying someone to transcribe your recordings, there are several things you can do to make the recording better.

Find your transcriptionist

Firstly, if possible, find a transcriptionist before recording anything. Talk through your project with them and ask their advice. If you’re planning a big project rather than a one-off half hour interview, it is particularly important to build up a good relationship with your transcriptionist as they could make or break the project.

Choose your equipment

If you are recording spoken voices, make sure you have the right equipment for the job. Generally speaking, unless you are recording in a police station or council interview room where there are specialist tape decks, you will get a much better result by recording digitally – either straight on to a laptop or with a digital recorder. Anything involving a tape, of whatever size, will generate background noise. Worst of all is a Dictaphone – the clue is in the name, they’re designed to record one person’s dictation, not a two or three way conversation.

If you want to record straight onto your laptop, there is software available to help you do so – a quick websearch will bring up a choice of options.

Make sure you use enough microphones for the number of participants, preferably one microphone for every two participants, and make sure they’re omni-directional i.e. they pick up from all directions, not just the person who they are pointing at.

Place and test your equipment

Place your microphone(s) so that they will pick up all the voices. If it is a one-to-one interview place your microphone nearer to your interviewee – it’s no good recording your own voice and not being able to hear what your interviewee is saying. Once it’s in place test it – record some natural conversation and play it back to check that you can hear all the voices clearly. Once you are set up, don’t move the microphone, as that will only add noise onto the recording; also try and make sure that nobody rustles papers by the microphone as this will drown out the voices.

Manage your recording

If you are recording more than two people, give a brief introduction and ask each participant to introduce themselves with their name and to say a little bit about themselves. This helps the transcriptionist to identify individual voices. Then, once you begin, manage the discussion so that, as far as possible, only one person is speaking at a time. If two or more people speak at the same time, you will find that usually only the one who is loudest or closest to the microphone is audible and anything else that is said will be lost.

This really just skims the surface. You can go into more depth about microphones, recording equipment, types of sound files and other aspects, such as recording conference proceedings or phone interviews, but at least by following these tips you stand a good chance of getting a reasonable quality recording. I will just leave you with one thought – if after reading this you still don’t think it’s worth your while making the effort to get a clear recording, then bear in mind that a good transcriptionist will increase their rates for a poor recording as it takes much longer to get a good transcription from it.