Voice to Paper Checklist - Dean's Notes
I've been printing paper checklists on index cards lately. The project of laying it out and filling in the details using Stardate and a local AI has been pretty fun, so I wrote up how I'm doing it: www.deanputney.com/blog/2025/03...
21.03.2025 16:47 — 👍 3 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
A printed 4x6 index card clipped to a tiny yellow clipboard. It says 2025-03-15 Saturday at the top and has a list of checklist items for the day.
![Bash output from a terminal command:
$ find Transcriptions -type f -ctime -1 -print0 | xargs -0 cat | llm -s "$(cat prompts/latex_checklist.md)"
```latex
\begin{itemize}[label=\largesquare, left=0pt, itemsep=0.2\baselineskip]
\item Do the dishes in the kitchen
\item Eat breakfast
\item Set up the Aero Garden
\item Clean the living room
\begin{itemize}[label=\largesquare, left=0pt, itemsep=0.1\baselineskip]
\item Clear off the dining room table
\item Clear off the coffee table
\end{itemize}
\item Clean all three toilets
\item Scrub the shower upstairs
\item Deep clean the first floor bathroom
\item Install the XCI outlets
\item Go to Luther Burbank Park
\begin{itemize}[label=\largesquare, left=0pt, itemsep=0.1\baselineskip]
\item Dog park
\item Swim
\end{itemize}
\item Do another pass at cleaning
\begin{itemize}[label=\largesquare, left=0pt, itemsep=0.1\baselineskip]
\item Sweep
\end{itemize}
\end{itemize}
```](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:druvhb6zbuwhecwmfzsxwm3r/bafkreigfy6573gpg7syiqkjngrb4nmv64dqci5q5ufl6kqjhx7jmsu526m@jpeg)
Bash output from a terminal command:
$ find Transcriptions -type f -ctime -1 -print0 | xargs -0 cat | llm -s "$(cat prompts/latex_checklist.md)"
```latex
\begin{itemize}[label=\largesquare, left=0pt, itemsep=0.2\baselineskip]
\item Do the dishes in the kitchen
\item Eat breakfast
\item Set up the Aero Garden
\item Clean the living room
\begin{itemize}[label=\largesquare, left=0pt, itemsep=0.1\baselineskip]
\item Clear off the dining room table
\item Clear off the coffee table
\end{itemize}
\item Clean all three toilets
\item Scrub the shower upstairs
\item Deep clean the first floor bathroom
\item Install the XCI outlets
\item Go to Luther Burbank Park
\begin{itemize}[label=\largesquare, left=0pt, itemsep=0.1\baselineskip]
\item Dog park
\item Swim
\end{itemize}
\item Do another pass at cleaning
\begin{itemize}[label=\largesquare, left=0pt, itemsep=0.1\baselineskip]
\item Sweep
\end{itemize}
\end{itemize}
```
Impressive! Gemma3 can handle my LaTeX template for my printed to do list index card.
The little Llama model and even some larger models I tried struggled with this. Getting the formatting exactly right, especially with nested lists, is pretty challenging.
15.03.2025 21:25 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
![Bash output from terminal command:
$ find Transcriptions -type f -ctime -1 -print0 | xargs -0 cat | llm -m llama3.2:1b -s "$(cat prompts/checklist.md)"
- [ ] Do the dishes in the kitchen
- [ ] Eat breakfast
- [ ] Set up Aero Garden again
- [x] Clean living room (clear off dining and coffee tables)
- [ ] Clear off dining and coffee tables
- [x] Clean toilets (3)
- [x] Scrub shower upstairs
- [x] Deep clean first floor bathroom
- [ ] Install XCI outlets
- [x] Take Iggy to Luther Burbank Park
$ find Transcriptions -type f -ctime -1 -print0 | xargs -0 cat | llm -m llama3.2:1b -s "$(cat prompts/checklist.md)"
* To do item
- Set up Aero Garden again
- Clean living room
- Clear off dining room table
- Clear off coffee table
- Clear the kitchen counters and sink
- Clear out all three toilets
- Scrub shower on first floor bathroom
- Deep clean first floor bathroom
* To do item](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:druvhb6zbuwhecwmfzsxwm3r/bafkreic2ihdsnywpp44ewrbgyynav34ng3zmm5r5ysoyxsolb4pzfamgrm@jpeg)
Bash output from terminal command:
$ find Transcriptions -type f -ctime -1 -print0 | xargs -0 cat | llm -m llama3.2:1b -s "$(cat prompts/checklist.md)"
- [ ] Do the dishes in the kitchen
- [ ] Eat breakfast
- [ ] Set up Aero Garden again
- [x] Clean living room (clear off dining and coffee tables)
- [ ] Clear off dining and coffee tables
- [x] Clean toilets (3)
- [x] Scrub shower upstairs
- [x] Deep clean first floor bathroom
- [ ] Install XCI outlets
- [x] Take Iggy to Luther Burbank Park
$ find Transcriptions -type f -ctime -1 -print0 | xargs -0 cat | llm -m llama3.2:1b -s "$(cat prompts/checklist.md)"
* To do item
- Set up Aero Garden again
- Clean living room
- Clear off dining room table
- Clear off coffee table
- Clear the kitchen counters and sink
- Clear out all three toilets
- Scrub shower on first floor bathroom
- Deep clean first floor bathroom
* To do item
Is it perfect? No, but it is correctly formatted.
Llama3.2 1b can almost do it, but it is not quite as consistent. The formatting doesn't always come out correctly. But that's very impressive for a teeny tiny model!
15.03.2025 21:25 — 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
![Bash output from terminal command:
$ find Transcriptions -type f -ctime -1 -print0 | xargs -0 cat | llm -s "$(cat prompts/checklist.md)"
- [ ] Do the dishes
- [ ] Eat breakfast
- [ ] Set up the Aero Garden
- [ ] Clean the living room
- [ ] Clear off the dining room table
- [ ] Clear off the coffee table
- [ ] Clean all toilets
- [ ] Scrub the shower
- [ ] Deep clean the first floor bathroom
- [ ] Install XCI outlets
- [ ] Go to Luther Burbank Park
- [ ] Dog park
- [ ] Swim
- [ ] Sweep
- [ ] Do dishes (again)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:druvhb6zbuwhecwmfzsxwm3r/bafkreih7impaaht22jed4miacgflbkurlftqhvaota5fx6s776ysyatwpe@jpeg)
Bash output from terminal command:
$ find Transcriptions -type f -ctime -1 -print0 | xargs -0 cat | llm -s "$(cat prompts/checklist.md)"
- [ ] Do the dishes
- [ ] Eat breakfast
- [ ] Set up the Aero Garden
- [ ] Clean the living room
- [ ] Clear off the dining room table
- [ ] Clear off the coffee table
- [ ] Clean all toilets
- [ ] Scrub the shower
- [ ] Deep clean the first floor bathroom
- [ ] Install XCI outlets
- [ ] Go to Luther Burbank Park
- [ ] Dog park
- [ ] Swim
- [ ] Sweep
- [ ] Do dishes (again)
Doing a little experimentation this weekend. This one liner takes my Stardate entries for the day, runs them through Gemma3 locally, and outputs a Markdown checklist of my to-dos.
This is something I've been toying with for a while, but I finally got it to be smooth. Nice!
15.03.2025 21:25 — 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Stardate is a seamless note taking app for Apple Watch and iOS. Tap, talk, done!
Transcription is done with Whisper 100% locally, so it works offline AND it's private.
Free on the App Store now– no sign ups, no ads. Try it out!
apps.apple.com/us/app/stard...
stardateapp.com
27.02.2025 19:06 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1
A yellow puppet hand touching the keyboard of a laptop.
A yellow puppet hand touching a location on a map of Seattle.
A yellow puppet hand picking the nose of a yellow puppet.
I can touch everything now
24.02.2025 19:10 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
