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As a youngster, I devoured novels until my vision grew hazy. Once my GCSEs arrived, I demonstrated the endurance of a ascetic, studying for hours without a break. But in lately, I’ve observed that capacity for deep focus dissolve into infinite browsing on my device. My focus now contracts like a slug at the tap of a finger. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for someone who creates content for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that left me disheartened. I aimed to regain that mental elasticity, to stop the brain rot.

So, about a twelve months back, I made a small promise: every time I came across a word I didn’t understand – whether in a book, an piece, or an casual conversation – I would look it up and record it. Nothing fancy, no elegant notebook or stylish pen. Just a running list kept, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d devote a few moments reading the list back in an attempt to imprint the word into my memory.

The list now covers almost 20 pages, and this tiny habit has been quietly transformative. The payoff is less about peacocking with uncommon adjectives – which, let’s face it, can make you sound 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 mind is flexing again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in conversation, the very process of noticing, documenting and revising it breaks the slide into passive, semi-skimmed attention.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping element to it – it acts 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 simple routine to maintain. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the tube, 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 slow my pace to a frustrating crawl. (The e-reader, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently neglect to do), conscientiously scrolling through my expanding word-hoard like I’m studying for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate perhaps five percent of these words into my daily speech. “unreformable” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But most of them remain like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom handled.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my mind much keener. I notice I'm turning less frequently for the same overused handful of adjectives, and more often for something precise and muscular. Rarely are more satisfying than discovering the exact word you were searching for – like locating the lost component that locks the image into position.

At a time when our gadgets drain our attention with merciless efficiency, it feels subversive to use my own as a instrument for slow thought. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d lost – the pleasure of engaging a mind that, after a long time of slack scrolling, is finally stirring again.