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As a youngster, I devoured books until my vision blurred. When my GCSEs came around, I demonstrated the endurance of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without a break. But in lately, I’ve watched that ability for intense focus dissolve into infinite scrolling on my phone. My focus now contracts like a snail at the touch of a finger. Engaging with books for enjoyment seems less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for a person who creates content for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I wanted to restore that mental elasticity, to stop the brain rot.

So, about a year ago, I made a modest promise: every time I encountered a term I didn’t understand – whether in a novel, an piece, or an casual conversation – I would research it and write it down. Nothing elaborate, no elegant notebook or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record kept, ironically, on my phone. Each week, I’d spend a few moments reviewing the list back in an attempt to lodge the word into my memory.

The record now covers almost twenty sheets, and this small ritual has been subtly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I search for and record a word, I feel a slight expansion, as though some underused part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in conversation, the very act of noticing, logging and reviewing it breaks the slide into passive, superficial focus.

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

Not that it’s an easy routine to maintain. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m reading on the tube, I have to pause in the middle, pull out my device and type “millennialism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the person squeezed against me. It can reduce my reading to a frustrating crawl. (The Kindle, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently neglect to do), dutifully browsing through my growing vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a word test.

In practice, I integrate perhaps five percent of these terms into my daily conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But most of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and listed but rarely used.

Nevertheless, it’s made my thinking much keener. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same overused handful of descriptors, and more frequently for something precise and strong. Few things are more gratifying than discovering the exact term you were seeking – like finding the missing puzzle piece that locks the picture into position.

At a time when our devices drain our attention with relentless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use mine as a tool for deliberate thinking. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d forfeited – the joy of exercising a intellect that, after years of slack browsing, is at last stirring again.