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As a child, I consumed books until my eyes grew hazy. When my exams arrived, I demonstrated the stamina of a monk, revising for lengthy periods without a break. But in lately, I’ve watched that ability for intense concentration dissolve into endless browsing on my device. My attention span now contracts like a slug at the tap of a thumb. Reading for enjoyment feels less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for a person who creates content for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted 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 novel, an article, or an casual conversation – I would research it and record it. Nothing fancy, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a running list maintained, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d devote a few moments reading the collection back in an attempt to imprint the word into my memory.

The record now covers almost twenty sheets, and this small ritual has been subtly transformative. The payoff is less about showing off with obscure descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you sound unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a faint stretch, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in conversation, the very act of noticing, documenting and revising it interrupts the drift into inactive, semi-skimmed focus.

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

Not that it’s an simple routine to keep up. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m reading on the tube, I have to pause mid-paragraph, take out my phone and enter “millennialism” into my Google doc while trying not to bump the person pressed against me. It can slow my pace to a frustrating crawl. (The e-reader, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently neglect to do), conscientiously browsing through my expanding word-hoard like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

Realistically, I integrate perhaps five percent of these words into my everyday conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “Lugubrious” too. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and catalogued but rarely handled.

Still, it’s made my thinking much keener. I notice I'm reaching less often for the same tired selection of descriptors, and more often for something precise and muscular. Rarely are more gratifying than unearthing the perfect word you were searching for – like locating the lost puzzle piece that locks the picture into place.

In an era when our devices drain our attention with merciless efficiency, it feels subversive to use my own as a tool for slow thought. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d lost – the pleasure of engaging a mind that, after years of slack scrolling, is at last waking up again.