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As a child, I devoured novels until my vision blurred. Once my exams came around, I demonstrated the endurance of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without pause. But in recent years, I’ve watched that capacity for intense concentration fade into endless browsing on my device. My focus now shrinks like a snail at the tap of a thumb. Reading for pleasure seems less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for a person who creates content for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I wanted to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the mental decline.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a small vow: every time I encountered a word I didn’t know – whether in a book, an article, or an casual conversation – I would look it up and record it. Nothing fancy, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, ironically, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few minutes reviewing the list back in an attempt to imprint the word into my memory.

The list now covers almost twenty sheets, and this small ritual has been subtly transformative. The benefit is less about peacocking 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 search for and note a term, I feel a faint stretch, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “phantom” in dialogue, the very act of spotting, documenting and reviewing it breaks the drift into passive, semi-skimmed focus.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping element to it – it functions 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 routine to maintain. It is often extremely impractical. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to pause in the middle, pull out my device and type “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the person squeezed against me. It can slow my reading to a maddening speed. (The Kindle, with its integrated dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the revising (which I often neglect to do), dutifully scrolling through my growing word-hoard like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

In practice, I incorporate perhaps 5% of these terms into my daily speech. “Incorrigible” was adopted. “Lugubrious” as well. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – admired and listed but rarely used.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my thinking much keener. I notice I'm reaching less often for the same tired selection of descriptors, and more often for something exact and muscular. Rarely are more gratifying than unearthing the exact term you were searching for – like locating the lost puzzle piece that locks the image into position.

At a time when our gadgets siphon off our attention with merciless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use mine as a instrument for slow thinking. And it has given me back something I worried I’d forfeited – the joy of engaging a mind that, after years of slack scrolling, is finally stirring again.