This is what I've found as well.

In high school, a gym teacher forced us to copy his slides for sex ed. At the time I thought it was completely stupid. But come test time, it was amazing how much I remembered. Like you, I've never felt the need to re-read my notes - just writing down the information has been enough.

I've carried the habit with me, and it's continued to work well for me.

Something about hand writing is just much more effective than typing. I wish it weren't so.

Unfortunately, I am in the middle of kicking an internet addiction and I have not had the same concentration as before.

But things are improving. I have dozens of books with ideas, doodles, solutions, architectures, code and what not, strewn across my house.