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As a child, I devoured novels until my eyes blurred. When my exams came around, I exercised the stamina of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without a break. But in recent years, I’ve watched that ability for intense concentration fade into endless browsing on my phone. My focus now contracts like a snail at the touch of a finger. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for someone who writes for a living, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to regain that cognitive flexibility, to halt the mental decline.

So, about a year ago, I made a small vow: every time I encountered a word I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an piece, or an overheard discussion – I would research it and record it. Not a thing fancy, no elegant notebook or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d devote a few minutes reviewing the list back in an attempt to lodge the vocabulary into my recall.

The list now spans almost twenty sheets, and this tiny habit has been quietly life-changing. The benefit is less about peacocking with uncommon descriptors – 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 term, I feel a faint stretch, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in dialogue, the very act of noticing, logging and revising it breaks the slide into passive, superficial focus.

There is also a diary-keeping element to it – it functions as something of a diary, a record of where I’ve been reading, 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 subway, I have to stop mid-paragraph, take out my device and enter “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the person squeezed against me. It can reduce my pace to a maddening crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), dutifully browsing through my growing vocabulary collection like I’m studying for a vocabulary test.

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

Nevertheless, it’s made my mind much sharper. I find myself turning less often for the same overused handful of adjectives, and more often for something exact and strong. Few things are more satisfying than discovering the perfect word you were seeking – like finding the lost puzzle piece that locks the image into place.

At a time when our devices drain our attention with merciless efficiency, it feels subversive to use mine as a instrument for deliberate thinking. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d forfeited – the joy of engaging a intellect that, after years of slack scrolling, is finally waking up again.