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As a child, I consumed novels until my vision grew hazy. When my exams came around, I exercised the stamina of a monk, revising for lengthy periods without a break. But in lately, I’ve observed that capacity for intense concentration dissolve into endless browsing on my device. My focus now contracts like a slug at the touch of a finger. Reading for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for someone who writes for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to regain that mental elasticity, to stop the brain rot.

So, about a year ago, I made a modest vow: every time I encountered a word I didn’t understand – whether in a novel, an piece, or an overheard conversation – I would research it and write it down. Nothing fancy, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record kept, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few moments reading the collection back in an attempt to lodge the word into my recall.

The list now covers almost twenty sheets, and this small ritual has been subtly transformative. The benefit is less about showing off with obscure descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I search for and record a term, I feel a slight expansion, as though some underused part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in conversation, the very process of noticing, documenting and revising it interrupts the slide 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 reading, what I’ve been pondering and who I’ve been hearing.

Not that it’s an simple routine to keep up. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to pause mid-paragraph, pull out my phone and type “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to bump the stranger pressed against me. It can reduce my reading to a maddening speed. (The e-reader, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently forget to do), dutifully scrolling through my growing word-hoard like I’m studying for a word test.

In practice, I integrate maybe 5% of these terms into my daily conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “Lugubrious” too. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and listed but seldom used.

Nevertheless, it’s made my thinking much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same tired handful of adjectives, and more frequently for something exact and muscular. Few things are more satisfying than discovering the perfect word you were seeking – like locating the lost puzzle piece that locks the image into position.

At a time when our gadgets siphon off our focus with merciless efficiency, it feels subversive to use mine as a instrument for slow thought. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d lost – the pleasure of exercising a mind that, after a long time of lazy browsing, is at last stirring again.