Using Dobbin While You Travel: Capture Your Work When You’re Away From Your Desk
Alex Ostrove, Head of Customer Success
5 mins
Travel breaks routines. You’re between meetings, at the gate, or in a car, and you don’t have the screen time to sit down and type out a proper request. Meeting outcomes, follow-ups and ideas pile up in your head, and by the time you’re back at your desk, half of it is gone.
Dobbin works inside Slack, so if Slack is on your phone, Dobbin is with you wherever you go. Talk your thoughts in as you go and ask Dobbin to turn them into follow-ups, briefs and plans right then. By the time you’re back, the work is already started, or done.
The short version: start one trip thread, talk everything into it rough, and ask Dobbin to act on it whenever you’re ready.
Everything happens in Slack
There’s no new app to download and nowhere new to go. You’ll use the Slack app on your phone, the same Dobbin you already work with, and one thread as your home base for the trip.
1. Before you go: start your trip thread
Your home base is one thread where everything from your trip lives. Start it in your Dobbin DM or in a channel you already use.
Send a message with a title for your trip, like “Alex’s trip for client meetings.”
Tag @Dobbin in that first message and tell it what the thread is for. For example:
@Dobbin I’m traveling this week for client meetings. I’ll be saving my notes from the trip in this thread.
From then on, reply in that thread all trip.
2. Put it on your home screen
Make your trip thread one tap away so capturing is faster than forgetting.
Thread shortcut (recommended)
In Slack, long-press the first message of your trip thread and tap Copy link.
Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone and tap +.
Search for and add the Open URLs action, then paste your link.
Tap the share icon and choose Add to Home Screen. Name it something like “Trip log.”
Tap the new icon to confirm it opens your thread.
Quick alternatives
Save for later: long-press the first message of your thread and tap Save for later. It’ll show up in your Later list in Slack.
Star your Dobbin DM: if your thread lives in your DM, open the DM, tap the name at the top, and tap Star. It stays pinned at the top of your conversations.
3. On the move: talk it in
Quick capture (under 5 minutes): tap the microphone in the Slack message box, talk, tap the check mark, then send. Dobbin transcribes it automatically.
Longer thinking: record in your phone’s voice memo app, then paste the transcript or drop the audio file into your thread.
Don’t clean it up. Rambling is fine. Dobbin sorts it out.
4. State the job
Open your clip by saying what it is:
Debrief: “Debrief from my meeting with [name]: here’s what happened…”
Use it as you’re leaving a meeting, while it’s fresh.
Brain dump: “Brain dump: …”
Use it whenever you have a free minute and something’s on your mind.
5. Prep before a meeting
“Prep me for my meeting with [client] about [project].”
This works when the context already lives in Dobbin, like a project channel where your team has been talking about the client, or docs in your knowledge base. Dobbin pulls from what’s there and can’t invent what isn’t.
Working from your DM? Dobbin won’t have access to information from your channels there. If you need to pull in project or client context, send the request in the channel where that conversation happens.
6. Make it actionable, anytime
You don’t have to wait until you’re back. Ask Dobbin to turn what you captured into the real thing as soon as it’s useful.
You captured | Ask Dobbin | You get |
|---|---|---|
A meeting debrief | “Draft a recap and thank-you to [name] from my debrief.” | An email ready to copy, paste and send |
A brain dump | “Turn my brain dump about [topic] into a project brief I can share with [team].” | A shareable project brief |
What you owe | “Draft the follow-ups for each item I owe.” | One draft per person |
What you need to start | “Turn this into a kickoff message and first-step plan for [project].” | Something ready to send or act on |
Got an idea for how your team works? Try:
I’ve been thinking about [process]. We’ve been wanting to improve, streamline and revise how we do this, and based on my recent findings while traveling, I want to move on the following updates: [your notes]. Turn this into a proposal I can share with the team.
7. After the trip: recap and learn
When you’re back at your desk, go to your trip thread and paste:
Read through everything I sent on this thread during my trip and give me a digest:
What were my post-meeting debriefs?
Summarize my brain dumps.
What do I owe, and to whom?
What do I need to start?
Then follow up with:
Learn all of the above.
That makes your trip referable later, so you’re not scrolling back through voice clips.
Best practices
Instead of | Do this |
|---|---|
Scattering clips across channels | One trip thread. Everything in one place means a complete recap. |
Waiting until you can type it properly | Send it rough. Capture, capture, capture. Polishing is how things slip. |
Saving all the work for when you’re back | Ask Dobbin to act on it as you go. Your follow-ups can be ready before you land. |
Hunting for your thread later | Add the home screen shortcut or save it for later. One tap to find it. |
Diving straight back into your inbox | Run the recap and “learn all of the above” first. Close the loop before new work buries it. |
