Resource utilization indication and commit mechanism in a data processing system and method therefor

A graphical user interface is implemented to indicate how much of the systems resources are being consumed during a dictation operation, via speech recognition, of a document and its corresponding persistent results information and when said resources are nearing their capacity. An external user may take steps necessary to reduce the information stored within the memory resources of a data processing system implementing this graphical user interface in an efficient and effective manner, through the use of a "commit" signal.