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When I was a youngster, I devoured novels until my vision grew hazy. Once my GCSEs came around, I demonstrated the stamina of a monk, revising for lengthy periods without pause. But in recent years, I’ve observed that capacity for deep focus fade into infinite browsing on my device. My attention span now contracts like a snail at the touch of a thumb. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for a person who writes for a living, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I wanted to regain that mental elasticity, to stop the brain rot.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a modest promise: every time I encountered a word I didn’t know – whether in a book, an piece, or an overheard conversation – I would research it and write it down. Nothing elaborate, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record kept, ironically, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d devote a few moments reading the collection back in an effort to imprint the vocabulary into my memory.

The list now covers almost 20 pages, and this tiny habit has been subtly transformative. The payoff is less about showing off with obscure adjectives – which, let’s face it, can make you sound unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the practice. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a slight expansion, as though some neglected part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in dialogue, the very act of spotting, logging and reviewing it breaks the slide into passive, semi-skimmed attention.

Additionally, there's a journalling element to it – it functions as something of a journal, 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 easy routine to maintain. It is often extremely impractical. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to pause mid-paragraph, pull out my device and type “millennialism” into my Google doc while trying not to bump the stranger pressed against me. It can reduce my reading to a frustrating crawl. (The e-reader, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently forget to do), conscientiously browsing through my expanding word-hoard like I’m studying for a vocabulary test.

Realistically, I integrate maybe 5% of these terms into my daily conversation. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “Lugubrious” as well. But the majority of them remain like exhibits – appreciated and listed but seldom handled.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my thinking much keener. I find myself turning less frequently for the same overused handful of descriptors, and more often for something precise and muscular. Rarely are more gratifying than discovering the perfect word you were seeking – like finding the missing component that snaps the picture into place.

In an era when our gadgets drain our focus with relentless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use mine as a instrument for slow thought. And it has given me back something I feared I’d forfeited – the pleasure of engaging a intellect that, after years of lazy scrolling, is at last waking up again.