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When I was a child, I devoured books until my eyes grew hazy. Once my GCSEs came around, I demonstrated the stamina of a monk, revising for hours without pause. But in recent years, I’ve observed that ability for deep concentration fade into infinite scrolling on my device. My attention span now shrinks like a snail at the tap of a finger. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for a person who writes for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to regain that mental elasticity, to halt the brain rot.

Therefore, about a year ago, I made a modest vow: every time I came across a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an article, or an overheard discussion – I would research it and write it down. Nothing fancy, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, ironically, on my smartphone. Each week, I’d devote a few minutes reading the collection back in an attempt to lodge the word into my recall.

The record now spans almost 20 pages, and this tiny ritual has been subtly transformative. The benefit is less about showing off with uncommon adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the practice. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a faint stretch, as though some underused part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in conversation, the very process of spotting, documenting and reviewing it interrupts the slide into inactive, superficial attention.

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

It's not as if it’s an easy habit to maintain. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to stop in the middle, take out my device and enter “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the stranger pressed against me. It can reduce my pace to a frustrating crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated lexicon, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently forget to do), conscientiously browsing through my growing word-hoard like I’m preparing for a word test.

In practice, I integrate maybe 5% of these terms into my daily speech. “Incorrigible” was adopted. “mournful” too. But the majority of them remain like museum pieces – admired and catalogued but seldom handled.

Still, it’s rendered my mind much keener. I find myself turning less often for the same tired handful of descriptors, and more often for something exact and muscular. Rarely are more gratifying than discovering the perfect word you were searching for – like finding the lost puzzle piece that snaps the image into place.

In an era when our devices siphon off our focus with relentless efficiency, it feels rebellious to use my own as a tool for slow thinking. And it has given me back something I feared I’d forfeited – the pleasure of engaging a mind that, after years of slack browsing, is at last waking up again.