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As a child, I consumed novels until my vision blurred. Once my exams came around, I exercised the endurance of a monk, studying for hours without pause. But in lately, I’ve observed that ability for deep concentration fade into infinite browsing on my phone. My attention span now shrinks like a snail at the tap of a thumb. Reading for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for a person who writes for a living, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted to regain that cognitive flexibility, to stop the mental decline.

So, about a year ago, I made a modest promise: every time I encountered a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an article, or an casual 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 seven days, I’d spend a few moments reading the collection back in an attempt to lodge the vocabulary into my memory.

The list now covers almost 20 pages, 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 mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a term, I feel a faint stretch, as though some neglected part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in conversation, the very act of noticing, documenting and reviewing it breaks the drift into passive, superficial focus.

There is also a journalling element to it – it functions as something of a journal, a record of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been hearing.

Not that it’s an simple routine to keep up. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m reading on the tube, I have to pause in the middle, pull out my phone and enter “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to bump the stranger pressed against me. It can slow my reading to a maddening speed. (The Kindle, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently neglect to do), conscientiously browsing through my growing word-hoard like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

Realistically, I incorporate perhaps 5% of these words into my everyday conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But most of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and catalogued but rarely used.

Still, it’s rendered my thinking much keener. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same tired selection of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and strong. Rarely are more satisfying than discovering the exact term you were searching for – like locating the missing puzzle piece that locks the picture into position.

In an era when our gadgets drain our focus with relentless effectiveness, it feels rebellious 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 mind that, after years of slack scrolling, is finally stirring again.