Edit (3): Your questions is not clear even its upgrades and comments. In before efforts to help you I try to pointed, what and how to do or what is possible to do (from point of you of my guessing what is the problem) for solving your problem. As you respond, the answer is not what you looking for :-( ).

After while I decide to resume my efforts in form, with more explanation (without hope, that it will be recognized as helpful, more for my exercises :-)).

The preparing of my answer I made the following steps: - remove all irrelevant part of provided MWE (layout package and macros connected with it)

• redefine definition of new commands, now the align notes content with help of added package ragged2e on smart way to the left and right text border and eliminate all presented vertical shifts (which purpose is unclear):

\newcommand{\marginhead}[1]{\sidepar{\sffamily\footnotesize \RaggedLeft #1}} \newcommand{\rdate}[1]{\marginpar[]{\sffamily\footnotesize \RaggedRight #1}}

• add explanation how to determine distance of side and margin notes from text borders (where I assume, that distance for the side notes and margin notes have to be the same):

\setmarginnotes{5mm} % distance between text border margin notes box {30mm}% width of margin notes box {3mm} % distance between two successive margin notes % note: it doesn't effect on side notes!

• add showframe packageto MWE for showing, where is the text border (since MWE use preset of the first line indent, so one line text are moved from text border for 2em (length of the indentation)

Now I add lipsum package for adding dummy text, by which I hope will give better filling about position of side and margin notes and see indentation of the first line in paragraph. If you don't like to have indentation, then put in preamble \setlenght{\indent}{0pt}. Also I further simply definitions of commands for side and margin notes.

Open stay question, if lik to have different distance from text for side notes (on the left side of page) from distance of margin notes (on the right side page). IN this case you can do the following (not showed in my MWE):

• by \setmarginnotes set minimal distance of both notes
• accordingly change definition of newcommand for notes which should have bigger distance to text. For example for \rdate

\newcommand{\rdate}[1]{\marginpar[]{% \hspace{5mm}\begin{minipage}[t]{\marginparwidth-5mm} \sffamily\footnotesize \RaggedRight #1 \end{minipage}}}

In this case you need to add package calc into your document preamble. How this can look out for zero margin note distance and then shifting margin notes for 5mm to right side is below:

Complete WME is:

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt,article,oneside]{memoir} \pagestyle{simple} %\setlength{\parindent}{0pt} % set paragraph indentation to zero % preset margin notes, it can be changed according to user wish \setmarginnotes{5mm} % distance between text border margin notes box {30mm}% width of margin notes box {3mm} % distance between two successive margin notes % note: it doesn't have effect on side notes! \usepackage{ragged2e} % for use in margin notes content align \usepackage{calc} \usepackage{showframe} % show page layout \usepackage{lipsum} % for dummy text % custom sidepar and marginpar \newcommand{\marginhead}[1]{\sidepar{\sffamily\footnotesize \RaggedLeft #1}} \newcommand{\rdate}[1]{\marginpar[]{\RaggedRight #1}} \begin{document} \marginhead{MarginHead}% lonely side note Some text: \rdate{03.\,2015 -- 09.\,2015} \marginhead{rule below show side note box width \rule{\hsize}{1pt}}% \lipsum[2]% Monitoring... % \rdate{03.\,2015 -- 09.\,2015 \rule{\hsize}{1pt}} \end{document} 

Which gives:

To summarize:

• distance between text border and side and margin notes is determined by \setmarginnotes
• vertical distance between margin notes is also determined by \setmarginnotes, however, this not determine vertical distances between side notes. If they are to close, they will overwrite each other
• to have different distance for side notes and margin notes it should be by \setmarginnotes set minimal distance, bigger can be achieved by shifting a minipage inside margin note for desired amount.
• special care for verical aligning os side and margin notes isn't necessary. IN normal circumstances (when they are not to close to each other) they will perfectly aligned to anchored line in the main text.
• side note, which is not anchored to the text, "generate" empty line in a text to which is anchored

The End!