How do you remember what you're doing when knitting rib?

[gal51]

Did that title make sense? I am a beginner and am working on my first project with ribbing. It's a very simple, but long, scarf with K3P3 ribbing so it's a lot of switches back and forth. I've found the only way I can remember if I started a row with K or P is to keep a pad beside me and write down K or P before I knit each row. If I get distracted I forget what I'm doing and I still cannot tell just by looking if a stitch is a K or P ....

I'm getting tired of writing K and P constantly .... any help would be appreciated!

TIA!