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As a child, I consumed novels until my vision grew hazy. When my GCSEs came around, I demonstrated the endurance of a ascetic, studying for hours without a break. But in recent years, I’ve watched that ability for intense focus fade into infinite scrolling on my phone. My focus now shrinks like a snail at the touch of a finger. Reading for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for someone who creates content for a living, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to restore that mental elasticity, to halt the mental decline.

So, about a year ago, I made a small vow: every time I encountered a term I didn’t know – whether in a book, an piece, or an overheard discussion – I would look it up and record it. Not a thing fancy, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a running list maintained, ironically, on my smartphone. Each week, I’d spend a few moments reviewing the collection back in an effort to imprint the word into my recall.

The record now covers almost twenty sheets, and this tiny ritual has been subtly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with obscure descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I look up and record a term, I feel a slight stretch, as though some neglected part of my mind is flexing 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 attention.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping aspect to it – it functions as something of a diary, a record of where I’ve been reading, what I’ve been pondering and who I’ve been listening to.

Not that it’s an simple habit to maintain. It is frequently extremely impractical. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to pause mid-paragraph, take out my device and enter “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the person squeezed against me. It can slow my reading to a frustrating speed. (The e-reader, with its integrated lexicon, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often forget to do), conscientiously scrolling through my expanding vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

In practice, I integrate perhaps 5% of these words into my everyday speech. “unreformable” made the cut. “Lugubrious” too. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom handled.

Still, it’s rendered my thinking much keener. I notice I'm turning less frequently for the same tired selection of descriptors, and more frequently for something precise and strong. Rarely are more gratifying than unearthing the exact word you were seeking – like locating the lost puzzle piece that locks the image into position.

At a time when our devices siphon off our focus with merciless efficiency, it feels subversive to use mine as a tool for deliberate thinking. And it has given me back something I feared I’d forfeited – the pleasure of engaging a mind that, after years of lazy scrolling, is at last waking up again.