How do you take notes while learning to code?

I take notes constantly and reread them approximately never. Markdown files, a notebook, sticky notes, screenshots lost in some folder — it feels productive in the moment and then the information evaporates anyway. I'm starting to suspect the note-taking itself is the procrastination: the feeling of learning without any of the retention. The things that actually stuck are the ones I struggled through and then used, never the ones I copied down neatly. So what's your system — do you take notes at all, or just build things and let repetition do the work? I'd genuinely take one note habit that survives contact with reality.