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As a youngster, I consumed books until my eyes blurred. When my exams arrived, I demonstrated the stamina of a monk, revising for lengthy periods without a break. But in recent years, I’ve observed that ability for deep concentration fade into infinite scrolling on my device. My focus now contracts like a slug at the touch of a finger. Reading for enjoyment seems less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for someone who writes for a living, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to restore that mental elasticity, to halt the brain rot.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a modest promise: every time I encountered a term I didn’t know – whether in a book, an piece, or an casual discussion – I would research it and record it. Not a thing fancy, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a running list kept, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each week, I’d spend a few minutes reading the collection back in an attempt to lodge the word into my memory.

The list now covers almost twenty sheets, and this small habit has been quietly life-changing. The payoff is less about peacocking with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a slight stretch, as though some neglected part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never use “phantom” in dialogue, the very process of spotting, documenting and reviewing it breaks the slide into inactive, semi-skimmed focus.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping aspect to it – it acts as something of a journal, a record 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 maintain. It is frequently very inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to pause mid-paragraph, take out my phone and enter “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to bump the person squeezed against me. It can reduce my pace to a frustrating crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated lexicon, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently forget to do), conscientiously browsing through my expanding vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a word test.

Realistically, I incorporate maybe five percent of these words into my everyday conversation. “unreformable” was adopted. “Lugubrious” as well. But most of them remain like exhibits – admired and catalogued but rarely handled.

Still, it’s made my thinking much keener. I find myself turning less often for the same overused handful of descriptors, and more often for something exact and strong. Few things are more gratifying than unearthing the perfect term you were seeking – like finding the lost puzzle piece that snaps the picture into position.

At a time when our gadgets drain our focus with relentless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use mine as a tool for slow thinking. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d lost – the pleasure of engaging a intellect that, after a long time of slack scrolling, is finally waking up again.