The sentence copied into a notebook has already begun a second life.

Writing something down by hand is a small act of adoption. The words stop being someone else’s property and start becoming part of your own furniture, available later when you need them and altered slightly by where you put them. That second life is not about keeping a record. It is about the sentence being available to you at three in the morning, in an argument, or in the middle of a decision.

Keep somewhere to put the lines that catch you, even if it is untidy. Read back through it every few months. What you copied a year ago will tell you honestly what you were working on.