An hour's walk can be an hour of steered work

Most of what an agent needs from you is not typing. It is a decision: this one, not that one; stop there; yes, go ahead. Those can be spoken, which means the desk is optional for a surprising share of the job.

There is a difference between checking on work from your phone and doing it. The thirty-second answer is the first. This post is about the second: close the laptop, put one earbud in, and keep steering. Voice mode reads each session's turn out loud as it finishes, you answer by talking, and the phone moves to the next one waiting.

Two switches, and they are different things

This is the part worth getting straight before you leave the house. Both live on the Voice sessions tab of the phone app.

• Voice mode is about the fleet. One button at the top of the tab turns it on for all your sessions, and every session then sends each finished turn with a written answer in it for narration, including sessions that start after you walk out the door.
• Auto-speak is about this phone. When a session finishes a turn and is waiting on you, the phone opens it by itself, oldest first, and plays the narration without a tap.

Voice mode alone is a fleet that speaks when you choose to listen. Both together are the hands-free queue a walk needs.

Two buttons while you walk

The buttons sit at the top of the screen, in the same place every time, big enough to hit while moving.

• Respond. Tap it, say your answer, tap Send. Your reply is transcribed and delivered in the background, and the screen goes straight back to the queue. You do not wait for the agent.
• Snooze. One tap silences that session for your default length and returns to the queue.

Snooze is what keeps the walk moving. A question that needs a screen, or one you want to think about at your desk, can wait until you are back. Answering badly at pace is the one real mistake this mode lets you make.

The way out is built in

A queue that carries you from session to session needs a door. After a Respond or a Snooze, the app waits three seconds before opening the next session, and says so on screen. Untick Auto-speak in that pause and the loop stops. A session you have just heard is also passed over for a short while, so one busy session cannot trap you in a one-item loop.

What to expect from the phone

• It is a screen-on mode. A narration that would start while the app is hidden or the phone is locked is skipped, so keep the app open.
• Auto-speak does not know where the phone is. An unlocked phone with the app open keeps opening sessions and talking from your pocket. Phone in hand, one earbud.
• A clip is not guaranteed for every turn. When one cannot be made, the screen says why.

Pair the phone before you need this, because you cannot do that from the footpath. And when you get home, the same button turns voice mode off for all sessions.

The step-by-step is on A whole session by voice, on a walk, and the screen itself is on Voice mode on your phone.