What should I say in a voice note so an AI can find the tasks?

Say each task as its own sentence that starts with a commitment, such as "I need to," "remind me to," or "follow up with," and put the person and the deadline in the same sentence. Say dates out loud instead of leaving them implied. Anything you want treated as context rather than a task, say so, and the extraction has far less to guess about.

Last reviewed October 22, 2026

Use the phrases the extractor is told to look for

Sentio's reminder detection is instructed to look for phrasings like "I need to," "remember to," "don't forget," "follow up on," and time words such as "tomorrow," "next week," or "by Friday." The action-item prompts likewise ask for concrete actions rather than general thoughts. You do not have to recite a script, but a task phrased as a clear commitment is more likely to be picked up than one buried in a long reflective sentence like "it would probably be good if somebody looked at the invoices at some point."

One task, one sentence, one owner

Compare "Call the dentist, and then there is the Jamie thing and the invoice" with three separate sentences: "I need to call the dentist to move Thursday's appointment. I will follow up with Jamie about the contract before Friday. I need to send the March invoice to the client." The second version gives a task list that can be split cleanly, with a verb, an object and a person each time. The To-Do List format in Sentio asks for each item to be one clear action starting with a verb, so speaking in that shape means less rewording that could drift from what you meant.

Say the date, because the app will otherwise pick one

Sentio normalizes a few relative dates itself, including "today," "tomorrow" and "next week," and understands spoken times such as "at 3 pm." If you mention no date at all, a reminder created from your note is given a default of tomorrow morning. That is a convenience, not something you said, so when a deadline matters, state it: "by Friday the 18th," not "soon." Say weekdays together with the date when there is any chance of confusion.

Mark context as context

Voice notes mix tasks with thinking out loud. A short spoken label does real work: "that one is just background," or "no action on this, I only want to remember it." It also helps to end with a recap: "so, three things: dentist, Jamie, invoice." A recap gives you a second pass over the same items and makes it obvious, when you read the result, if one went missing. Neither habit is required, and extraction is still imperfect, so read the list against what you said.

Common questions

Do I have to use exact trigger phrases?

No. The detection works on the language you actually use, not a rigid template. Clear commitment phrases simply make your intent easier to read, for a model or for a person scanning the transcript later.

What if I ramble and mix several topics?

Unrelated tasks in one note are extracted as separate items. Rambling does raise the chance that a half-formed idea is read as a task or a real task is missed, so pausing between topics helps.

Does it matter that I say who owns a task?

It helps. The meeting-notes format only notes an owner when one is mentioned, so naming the person in the sentence is the way to get it into the output.