# Progressive Summarization Progressive summarization is a method of summarizing (or compressing) notes with the goal of minimizing future costs of determining if a note can be reused. ![[Building a Second Brain (Tiago Forte)#^eh2ods]] Or, put differently: ![[Building a Second Brain (Tiago Forte)#^hxdv9d]] After a note has gone through progressive summarization it starts to resemble a mountain from a bird's eye perspective, whose peaks the are the most important points or bits of info. You can then read the "tops" and decide if you want to descend for more detailed info. ![[Building a Second Brain (Tiago Forte)#Progressive Summarization Layers]] ## Benefits of Processed Highlighting As progressive summarization can be described as being nothing other then layered highlighting, one could argue against its effectiveness: ![[Highlighting Is Ineffective—Here’s How to Change That#^on08uz]] As correctly pointed above, the key point of progressive summarization is processing, and compressing notes to varying degrees, for which significant cognitive effort is required. It is this cognitive effort that, it turns out, is significantly beneficial: ![[Highlighting and Its Relation to Distributed Study and Students’ Metacognitive Beliefs#^puwgvd]] ![[Highlighting Is Ineffective—Here’s How to Change That#^hvv03t]] Other benefits of highlighted text are also indicated in other studies: ![[Highlighting and Its Relation to Distributed Study and Students’ Metacognitive Beliefs#^5nxk9w]]