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As a youngster, I devoured books until my eyes blurred. When my GCSEs arrived, I demonstrated the stamina of a monk, studying for hours without pause. But in lately, I’ve watched that ability for deep concentration fade into endless scrolling on my phone. My focus now shrinks like a snail at the tap of a finger. Reading for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for someone who creates content for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I wanted to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the mental decline.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a small promise: every time I came across a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an article, or an overheard conversation – I would look it up and record it. Not a thing elaborate, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record kept, amusingly, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few moments reading the list back in an effort to lodge the word into my recall.

The record now spans almost 20 pages, and this small habit has been quietly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the practice. Each time I search for and record a term, I feel a faint expansion, as though some neglected part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in conversation, the very process of noticing, logging and revising it breaks the slide into passive, semi-skimmed attention.

There is also 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.

Not that it’s an easy routine to keep up. It is often extremely impractical. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to stop in the middle, pull out my phone and enter “millenarianism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the person pressed against me. It can reduce my reading to a frustrating crawl. (The e-reader, with its integrated dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), dutifully scrolling through my expanding word-hoard like I’m preparing for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate maybe five percent of these terms into my everyday conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But most of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and listed but seldom handled.

Nevertheless, it’s made my mind much keener. I notice I'm turning less often for the same overused selection of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and muscular. Rarely are more gratifying than unearthing the perfect word you were searching for – like finding the missing component that locks the picture into position.

At a time when our gadgets siphon off our focus with merciless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for slow thought. And it has given me back something I worried I’d lost – the joy of engaging a mind that, after years of lazy browsing, is finally waking up again.