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As a child, I devoured novels until my vision grew hazy. Once my exams came around, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, studying for hours without a break. But in recent years, I’ve observed that capacity for deep focus dissolve into infinite scrolling on my device. My focus now contracts like a slug at the touch of a finger. Engaging with books for pleasure seems less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for a person who creates content for a living, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted to regain that cognitive flexibility, to halt the brain rot.

Therefore, about a year ago, I made a small vow: every time I came across a term I didn’t understand – whether in a novel, an piece, or an casual conversation – I would research it and write it down. Nothing fancy, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a running list maintained, ironically, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few moments reading the collection back in an effort to imprint the word into my memory.

The list now covers almost twenty sheets, and this tiny ritual has been subtly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, 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 slight stretch, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in conversation, the very process of spotting, logging and revising it interrupts the slide into passive, semi-skimmed focus.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping aspect to it – it acts 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.

It's not as if it’s an easy habit to maintain. It is often very impractical. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to stop in the middle, pull out my phone and type “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the stranger squeezed 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 reviewing (which I often neglect to do), dutifully browsing through my expanding vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate perhaps five percent of these terms into my everyday speech. “unreformable” made the cut. “Lugubrious” as well. But most of them stay like museum pieces – admired and catalogued but seldom used.

Nevertheless, it’s made my mind much keener. I notice I'm turning less often for the same tired selection of descriptors, and more frequently for something precise and muscular. Few things are more gratifying than unearthing the perfect word you were seeking – like finding the lost component that locks the picture into place.

At a time when our devices drain our focus with relentless efficiency, it feels subversive to use my own as a tool for deliberate thinking. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d forfeited – the pleasure of engaging a mind that, after years of lazy browsing, is finally waking up again.