Write a 3-5 sentence executive summary at the top of a note only after 3-4 revisits — proven importance earns the investment

Why This Is a Rule

The executive summary is the most labor-intensive layer of progressive summarization — it requires active synthesis, not just selection. Writing 3-5 sentences that capture the note's essence demands genuine understanding and condensation skill. This investment should be reserved for notes that have proven their importance through repeated use, not applied speculatively to notes that might be useful someday.

The 3-4 revisit threshold is a use-based importance filter. A note revisited once might have been a one-time need. A note revisited 3-4 times has demonstrated a pattern of recurring value — it's something you keep coming back to, which justifies the investment of distilling it to its essence. This is progressive summarization's core philosophy: invest processing effort proportionally to demonstrated value, not speculative importance.

The executive summary sits at the top of the note, visible immediately upon opening. For a note you revisit frequently, this means you get the core insight in the first 3 seconds of looking at the note, without scrolling, without scanning bold passages, without reading full text. It's the maximum-compression layer: 3-5 sentences capturing what would otherwise require reading 500-2,000 words.

When This Fires

• After revisiting a note for the 3rd or 4th time and recognizing its recurring value
• When a note has Layers 2 and 3 applied and keeps surfacing in searches
• When you want to reference a note's core insight quickly without re-reading
• Complements Bold 10-20% of a note's text on first revisit — select only core-idea passages, making future scans 5-10x faster (bold) and Highlight 10-20% of bolded passages on subsequent revisits — this second compression layer targets your active needs, not generic importance (highlight) as the final distillation layer

Common Failure Mode

Summarizing everything upfront: writing executive summaries during initial capture or in batch sessions. This invests maximum effort in notes of unproven value. Most captured notes (80-90%) will never be revisited — spending 5 minutes per note writing summaries for 100 notes wastes 400-450 minutes on notes that never deliver value.

The Protocol

(1) Track revisit count for your notes (most note apps show modification dates; some track view count). (2) When a note reaches 3-4 revisits, add an executive summary at the very top: 3-5 sentences that capture the note's core insight, key claim, or actionable takeaway. (3) Write the summary in your own words — this is synthesis, not extraction. The summary should make sense without reading the rest of the note. (4) The summary is the note's "elevator pitch": if someone asked "What's this note about?" your summary is the answer. (5) Update the summary if your understanding deepens through future revisits. Unlike bold and highlight, the summary evolves with your comprehension.