question about cheating

i would like to know if using a piece of paper or a physical board to calculate what the next moves will be is considered cheating.

i know using another player, or an engine, or another method of the sort is cheating, but would copying the moves down on a paper or a physical board ONLY to try and predict moves is cheating?

thanks for any help.

P.S.: i havent done this yet, so if it does happen to be against the rules, know that i havent broken any rules.

i mean this as in if i used an actual chess board or piece of paper while playing online to truly visualize what could actually happen, instead of trying to manage tons of possibilites in my small dumb idiot brain.

In Live games, that would technically be disallowed.