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As a youngster, I consumed novels until my vision grew hazy. When my GCSEs came around, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, studying for hours without pause. But in recent years, I’ve observed that capacity for deep focus dissolve into infinite scrolling on my device. My attention span now shrinks like a snail at the touch of a finger. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for someone who creates content for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I aimed to regain 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 word I didn’t know – whether in a book, an article, or an casual discussion – I would look it up and record it. Not a thing elaborate, no elegant notebook or stylish pen. Just a running list kept, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few minutes reviewing the list back in an effort to lodge the word into my recall.

The list now covers almost twenty sheets, and this small ritual has been quietly life-changing. The payoff is less about showing off with obscure descriptors – which, let’s face it, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a term, I feel a slight expansion, as though some underused part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in conversation, the very act of noticing, logging and reviewing it interrupts the slide into inactive, superficial focus.

Additionally, there's a journalling element to it – it acts as something of a journal, a record of where I’ve been reading, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been hearing.

It's not as if it’s an simple habit to keep up. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to pause mid-paragraph, take out my device and type “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the person pressed against me. It can slow my pace to a maddening speed. (The e-reader, with its integrated lexicon, is much easier). And then there’s the revising (which I often neglect to do), dutifully scrolling through my expanding word-hoard like I’m studying for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate maybe five percent of these terms into my everyday speech. “unreformable” was adopted. “mournful” as well. But the majority of them remain like exhibits – admired and listed but rarely used.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my thinking much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same overused selection of descriptors, and more often for something precise and strong. Rarely are more gratifying than unearthing the exact word you were seeking – like locating the lost component that locks the picture into position.

In an era when our devices siphon off our attention with relentless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a tool for deliberate thought. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d lost – the pleasure of engaging a intellect that, after years of slack browsing, is at last waking up again.