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When I was a youngster, I devoured novels until my eyes grew hazy. When my exams arrived, I demonstrated the stamina of a ascetic, studying for lengthy periods without a break. But in lately, I’ve watched that capacity for deep concentration dissolve into infinite scrolling on my device. My attention span now contracts like a snail at the touch of a finger. Reading for pleasure seems less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for a person who creates content for a living, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I wanted to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the brain rot.

So, about a year ago, I made a small vow: every time I encountered a word I didn’t understand – whether in a book, an article, or an overheard discussion – I would look it up and record it. Nothing elaborate, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record kept, ironically, on my smartphone. Each week, I’d devote a few moments reading the collection back in an attempt to imprint the word into my recall.

The record now covers almost 20 pages, and this tiny habit has been quietly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with uncommon adjectives – which, let’s face it, can make you appear insufferable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I search for and record a term, I feel a slight stretch, as though some underused part of my brain is flexing again. Even if I never use “phantom” in dialogue, the very act of spotting, documenting and reviewing it breaks the slide into passive, semi-skimmed focus.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping element to it – it functions as something of a diary, a log 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 very inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to pause in the middle, take out my phone and type “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the stranger squeezed against me. It can reduce my reading to a frustrating crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often forget to do), conscientiously browsing through my expanding vocabulary collection like I’m studying for a vocabulary test.

In practice, I integrate maybe five percent of these words into my everyday speech. “Incorrigible” was adopted. “Lugubrious” too. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – admired and catalogued but seldom used.

Still, it’s made my mind much keener. I find myself turning less often for the same tired selection of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and muscular. Rarely are more gratifying than unearthing the exact word you were seeking – like finding the lost component that locks the image into position.

At a time when our gadgets drain our attention with merciless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a tool for slow thinking. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d forfeited – the pleasure of exercising a intellect that, after a long time of lazy browsing, is finally waking up again.