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As a child, I devoured books until my eyes grew hazy. Once my exams arrived, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, revising for lengthy periods without a break. But in recent years, I’ve observed that capacity for intense concentration fade into endless browsing on my phone. My attention span now contracts like a snail at the touch of a thumb. Engaging with books for enjoyment seems less like sustenance and more like endurance training. And for a person who writes for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to restore that mental elasticity, to stop the brain rot.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a small vow: every time I came across a word I didn’t know – whether in a book, an piece, or an overheard discussion – I would research it and record it. Not a thing fancy, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a running list maintained, amusingly, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d devote a few moments reviewing the collection back in an effort to lodge the word into my recall.

The record now spans almost 20 pages, and this tiny habit has been subtly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with uncommon descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a slight stretch, as though some underused part of my brain is flexing again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in dialogue, the very act of noticing, documenting and reviewing it breaks the slide into passive, semi-skimmed attention.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping aspect to it – it acts as something of a journal, a log 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 simple routine to maintain. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to stop in the middle, take out my phone and type “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the stranger pressed against me. It can slow my reading to a frustrating speed. (The Kindle, with its integrated lexicon, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), dutifully scrolling through my expanding vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a word test.

Realistically, I incorporate perhaps five percent of these words into my daily conversation. “Incorrigible” was adopted. “Lugubrious” too. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and listed but rarely handled.

Still, it’s made my thinking much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same overused selection of descriptors, and more frequently for something precise and strong. Few things are more gratifying than unearthing the exact word you were seeking – like finding the missing puzzle piece that locks the picture into position.

At a time when our gadgets siphon off our attention with relentless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use my own as a instrument for deliberate thinking. And it has given me back something I feared I’d lost – the joy of exercising a mind that, after years of slack scrolling, is at last stirring again.