I have the same problem. In time, I found notebooks to be rather useless as lab notebooks for this reason. I now use notebooks only transiently, for running a

I have the same problem. In time, I found notebooks to be rather useless as lab notebooks for this reason. I now use notebooks only transiently, for running a few experiments, but not as lasting documentation. Instead, I copy a summary of my experiments and findings into a journal, and delete the notebook once it has done its job. The journal is then my true research notebook. It contains experiments, results, code examples, future tasks, ideas, and a daily summary of how I spent my time. Particularly, I use org-journal on Emacs, but any old journal would do.