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As a child, I devoured books until my eyes blurred. When my exams came around, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, studying for hours without a break. But in lately, I’ve watched that ability for deep focus dissolve into endless browsing on my device. My attention span now shrinks like a snail at the tap of a finger. Engaging with books for pleasure feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for a person who creates content for a living, this is a occupational risk as well as something that left me disheartened. I aimed to regain that mental elasticity, to halt the mental decline.

So, about a twelve months back, I made a modest promise: every time I came across a word I didn’t understand – whether in a novel, an piece, or an overheard discussion – I would research it and write it down. Not a thing elaborate, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a running list kept, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each week, I’d devote a few moments reviewing the list back in an attempt to imprint the word into my memory.

The record now spans almost twenty sheets, and this tiny ritual has been quietly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with uncommon descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you appear insufferable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a faint stretch, as though some neglected part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in dialogue, the very act of spotting, logging and revising it breaks the drift into passive, semi-skimmed focus.

There is also a journalling element to it – it acts as something of a diary, a record of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been hearing.

Not that it’s an simple routine to keep up. It is often extremely inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to pause in the middle, pull out my device and type “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the person pressed against me. It can reduce my reading to a maddening crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated lexicon, is much kinder). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently forget to do), conscientiously browsing through my growing vocabulary collection like I’m studying for a vocabulary test.

In practice, I integrate perhaps 5% of these words into my daily conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “Lugubrious” as well. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and listed but rarely used.

Nevertheless, it’s made my mind much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same overused handful of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and strong. Rarely are more gratifying than discovering the exact term you were searching for – like finding the lost puzzle piece that locks the image into place.

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