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As a youngster, I devoured books until my vision blurred. When my exams came around, I demonstrated the endurance of a monk, revising for hours without pause. But in lately, I’ve observed that capacity for deep concentration dissolve into infinite browsing on my phone. My attention span now shrinks like a slug at the tap of a finger. Engaging with books for enjoyment seems less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for a person who writes for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I aimed to restore that cognitive flexibility, to halt the brain rot.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a small promise: every time I encountered a word I didn’t understand – whether in a book, an article, or an overheard conversation – I would research it and write it down. Not a thing elaborate, no elegant notebook or stylish pen. Just a running list kept, ironically, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few moments reading the list back in an effort to imprint the vocabulary into my memory.

The list now covers almost twenty sheets, and this small ritual has been quietly transformative. The payoff is less about showing off with obscure descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I search for and note a word, I feel a faint stretch, as though some underused part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in conversation, the very act of noticing, documenting and revising it breaks the drift into inactive, semi-skimmed focus.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping element to it – it functions as something of a journal, 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 easy habit to maintain. It is often very inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to stop in the middle, take out my phone and enter “millenarianism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the person squeezed against me. It can slow my pace to a maddening speed. (The e-reader, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), dutifully scrolling through my expanding vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate perhaps 5% of these terms into my everyday conversation. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “Lugubrious” too. But the majority of them remain like exhibits – appreciated and catalogued but seldom used.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my thinking much keener. I find myself turning less frequently for the same overused selection of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and strong. Few things are more gratifying than unearthing the perfect term you were seeking – like finding the lost component that snaps the picture into position.

In an era when our devices drain our attention with merciless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use mine as a tool for deliberate thought. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d forfeited – the joy of engaging a mind that, after years of slack browsing, is finally waking up again.