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As a child, I devoured novels until my eyes blurred. Once my exams arrived, I exercised the stamina of a monk, revising for hours without a break. But in recent years, I’ve watched that ability for intense concentration dissolve into endless browsing on my phone. My attention span now shrinks like a snail at the touch of a finger. Engaging with books for pleasure seems less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for someone who writes for a living, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to restore that cognitive flexibility, to halt the mental decline.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a small vow: every time I encountered a word I didn’t understand – whether in a novel, an article, or an overheard conversation – I would look it up and record it. Not a thing fancy, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a running list maintained, ironically, on my phone. Each week, I’d spend a few minutes reading the list back in an effort to imprint the vocabulary into my memory.

The record now spans almost twenty sheets, and this tiny ritual has been quietly transformative. The payoff is less about peacocking with uncommon adjectives – which, let’s face it, can make you appear insufferable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I search for and record a word, I feel a faint expansion, as though some neglected part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in dialogue, the very process of noticing, logging and reviewing it interrupts the drift into passive, superficial focus.

Additionally, there's a journalling aspect to it – it acts as something of a diary, a log of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been pondering and who I’ve been listening to.

It's not as if it’s an simple habit to keep up. It is often very inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to stop mid-paragraph, pull out my device and enter “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the person squeezed against me. It can slow my pace to a frustrating speed. (The Kindle, with its integrated dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently forget to do), conscientiously scrolling through my expanding word-hoard like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

Realistically, I integrate perhaps five percent of these terms into my daily speech. “Incorrigible” was adopted. “mournful” too. But the majority of them remain like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom used.

Still, it’s made my mind much keener. I notice I'm turning less often for the same tired handful of descriptors, and more often for something exact and muscular. Rarely are more satisfying than unearthing the exact word you were seeking – like locating the lost puzzle piece that snaps the image into position.

In an era when our gadgets siphon off our focus with merciless efficiency, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for deliberate thinking. 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 browsing, is at last waking up again.