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As a youngster, I consumed novels until my eyes grew hazy. When my exams came around, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, revising for hours without pause. But in recent years, I’ve observed that ability for intense focus dissolve into endless browsing on my phone. My attention span now shrinks like a slug at the tap of a thumb. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for a person who creates content for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that left me disheartened. I aimed to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the brain rot.

Therefore, about a year ago, I made a small promise: every time I encountered a word I didn’t understand – whether in a book, an article, or an overheard discussion – I would look it up and record it. Nothing elaborate, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, amusingly, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few minutes reviewing the list back in an effort to imprint the vocabulary into my memory.

The list now covers almost twenty sheets, and this small habit has been quietly transformative. The payoff is less about showing off with obscure adjectives – which, let’s face it, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I search for and note a term, I feel a slight stretch, as though some underused part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in dialogue, the very act of noticing, logging and revising it breaks the slide into inactive, semi-skimmed focus.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping aspect to it – it functions as something of a diary, a log of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been pondering and who I’ve been listening to.

It's not as if it’s an simple habit to keep up. It is often very impractical. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to pause mid-paragraph, pull out my device and type “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the person squeezed against me. It can reduce my reading to a maddening speed. (The Kindle, with its built-in dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently forget to do), dutifully browsing through my expanding vocabulary collection like I’m studying for a vocabulary test.

Realistically, I integrate maybe five percent of these words into my daily conversation. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But most of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and catalogued but seldom used.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my mind much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less often for the same overused selection of adjectives, and more often for something precise and strong. Rarely are more satisfying than discovering the exact term you were seeking – like locating the lost component that snaps the picture into position.

At a time when our gadgets drain our focus with relentless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use my own as a instrument for slow thought. And it has given me back something I feared I’d forfeited – the pleasure of exercising a intellect that, after a long time of slack browsing, is at last stirring again.