How Dictation Tools Can Help Speed Up Your Workflow [INFOGRAPHIC]

We all know the pen is mightier than the sword, but for 21st-century storytellers, the voice could be the one tool to rule them all. With speech-recognition software such as Siri and Dragon Naturally Speaking becoming more widely available to users, it’s time to ask yourself: How can I improve my workflow with dictation tools?

A new infographic from Carissa Newark of accountingdegree.net lays out just how much faster you can get work done with these tools, which can process information three times faster when compared to average-speed typing. It’s a great advantage for writers, especially those of us who may never type as fast as record holder Sean Wrona, who recently clocked a key-smacking velocity of 256 wpm at the Ultimate Typing Championship.

For now, dictation tools top out at a speed that’s about as fast as most of us can talk, but imagine if these tools could actually keep up with some of the world’s greatest speed-speakers? Guinness World record holder Steve Woodmore would need just over three hours to complete a 120,000 word novel using dictation tools that could keep up with him and his 637 wpm speed, or just over 10 words per second. We lowly plebes here at Mashable are probably closer to the average speaker at two words per second.

Have you improved your typing with one of these tools? Tell us in the comments what you think of speech-recognition and voice command software.