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When I was a child, I consumed novels until my eyes blurred. Once my exams came around, I exercised the endurance of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without a break. But in lately, I’ve watched that capacity for deep focus fade into infinite scrolling on my device. My focus now contracts like a snail at the touch of a thumb. Reading for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for someone who creates content for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I aimed to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the mental decline.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a small vow: every time I came across a term I didn’t understand – whether in a book, an piece, or an overheard conversation – I would look it up and record it. Nothing fancy, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, ironically, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few moments reviewing the list back in an attempt to imprint the word into my recall.

The record now spans almost twenty sheets, and this tiny ritual has been quietly life-changing. The payoff is less about showing off with uncommon descriptors – which, let’s face it, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I search for and note a word, I feel a faint stretch, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never use “phantom” in dialogue, the very act of noticing, logging and reviewing it breaks the drift into passive, superficial attention.

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

Not that it’s an simple routine to keep up. It is often extremely inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to stop mid-paragraph, pull out my phone and type “millenarianism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the stranger pressed against me. It can reduce my reading to a frustrating crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated lexicon, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often forget to do), conscientiously scrolling through my expanding word-hoard like I’m preparing for a word test.

Realistically, I integrate perhaps five percent of these terms into my daily conversation. “Incorrigible” was adopted. “Lugubrious” as well. But most of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and catalogued but rarely used.

Still, it’s made my thinking much sharper. I find myself reaching less often for the same tired selection of adjectives, and more often for something exact and strong. Rarely are more satisfying than unearthing the perfect term you were seeking – like finding the missing puzzle piece that locks the image into place.

At a time when our devices siphon off our focus with relentless efficiency, it feels subversive to use mine as a instrument for deliberate thought. And it has given me back something I feared I’d forfeited – the pleasure of exercising a mind that, after years of slack browsing, is at last stirring again.