Think of it as the difference between having two monitors and having one monitor where the bottom 1/8th to 1/2 randomly gets hijacked. Two monitors are also mor

Think of it as the difference between having two monitors and having one monitor where the bottom 1/8th to 1/2 randomly gets hijacked. Two monitors are also more expensive. My method has its trade-offs as you note, but I find having an uninterrupted flow through the main text while having access to the notes on an as desired basis works best for my enjoyment and comprehension. Without my method endnotes are so frustrating I almost never use them, and about half the time when I think ok this time it's worth it to context switch, it turns out not to be. This all comes down to Tufte's idea of letting the optic nerve do the work. A glance requires almost no conscious brainpower, this is why thumbing through a book you've read works so well. Thus I can glance over at the footnotes pages and decide if I care to read the note without even slightly interrupting my flow reading the main text.