Taking notes is not of much use if we can’t find and use them at the right time.

Trying to read the full set of notes on a topic when we are using the information can be too much of friction. We need ways to distill notes to increase their discoverability.

Tiago Forte in the book “Building a Second Brain” introduces “Progressive Summarization” which is a technique to distill notes down to their most important points.

The technique is simple: you highlight the main points of a note and then highlight the main points of those highlights, and so on, distilling the essence of a note in several “layers.” Each of these layers uses a different kind of formatting so you can easily tell them apart.

• Layer 1- Captured Notes

• Layer 2- Bolded Passages

  All you have to do is bold the main points within the note. This could include keywords that provide hints of what this text is about, phrases that capture what the original author was trying to say, or sentences that especially resonated with me even if I can’t explain why.

• Layer 3- Highlighted Passages

  For those notes that are especially long, interesting, or valuable, it is sometimes worth adding a third layer of highlighting using the “highlighting” feature offered by most Notes apps or simply underlining.

• Layer 4- Executive Summary

  For only the truly unique and valuable notes, you can add an “executive summary” with a few bullet points summarizing it in your own words.

But highlighting should be simple and these are the three common mistakes people make:

• Mistake #1: Over-Highlighting

  • The biggest mistake people make when they start to distill their notes is that they highlight way too much.

• Mistake #2: Highlighting Without a Purpose in Mind

  • You should do it when you’re getting ready to use the notes.

• Mistake #3: Making Highlighting Difficult

  • Don’t worry about analyzing, interpreting, or categorizing each point to decide whether to highlight it.

You can read about it further in this blog post: https://fortelabs.com/blog/progressive-summarization-a-practical-technique-for-designing-discoverable-notes/