Yep, I adopted that method after I lost part of a chapter for the first time myself. I don't often need the recording but it's always nice to have a reassurance that
if something goes awry, you have something to fall back on.
And I'd say you can save lots of time with this indeed. The initial draft needs about a third of the time for me than I'd need if I typed. The only downside is really the edit. I hardly needed to edit at all when typing (throwing it at Grammarly once was enough) but now I need to go through the whole document, fix all the bullshit the STT program left and then throw it through Grammarly and there'll still be some mistakes left (homophones are a nightmare). So double-checking would be a good idea but I don't bother since I'll do that for the paperback publication anyway. That comes down to personal preference though I guess.
Some other things I'd like to add in case somebody is thinking of maybe giving this a try:
Dictating chapters can be weird in the beginning. Especially because you have to dictate punctuation as well - as
@BenJepheneT already mentioned. I very regularly forgot commas in the beginning so I needed to edit that in later on. I also had the problem that I sometimes didn't know if I had done the fullstop already but didn't want to walk back to the laptop to check so I often have two in a row that I don't need.
Overall, this is something you get used to rather fast though. After a week or two, it starts being normal. Then you
might have a phase where when you talk with people, it'll be strange not to say each comma in your sentences
I swear, this passes though.
One of the things I feel to be
really nice about dictating instead of typing is that it doesn't just save time for the first draft. It can save you time overall if you go about it in a smart way: If you use a Bluetooth headset or maybe one with a long enough cable (From what I read, a cable is better and you should get one with a USB port instead of the audio-thingy. This seems to affect the sound quality.), you can do other stuff while dictating. Personally, I love cooking while doing my chapters
But other housework also works really well for me. I'd suggest only doing that after getting used to dictating though since it can be a bit distracting at first.
Another benefit is that it can be good for your health. Now, I mentioned initially that I can't type for extended periods of time. I also have some back problems and all of this shit comes from writing too much with the latter also being because of a not-that-great sitting posture (found a way to make that better but still).
When dictating, you can get up and walk around though. Heck, you can even do a workout if you want to (although I personally hate the breathing noises on the recording so I don't do that - same for eating, btw). For me, I noticed that both problems were slowly getting better after a few weeks. Now, I'm mostly pain-free.
So, if you do have any physical pain that's caused by sitting too much/weirdly or something like that, dictating might be a good idea. At the very least, it's worth a try. You might not notice it immediately but things can turn around in just a few weeks.
If anybody has specific questions, you can ask me. I've been almost exclusively dictating for the past year now unless I'm in a situation where I feel it'd be rude (like on public transport or something).
