Transcribing texts from textbooks

In big schools, my homework was to transcribe dialogs or articles of the textbooks into notebooks.
I have this habit, so I’ve incorporated this into my Russian learning. Suddenly, I thought that it maybe waste of time. It’s great to feel kind of making an aesthetic notebook, though.
Is there any merits on this? Do you do that?
Thank you for reading and I appreciate if you answer my questions.