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As a child, I devoured novels until my eyes grew hazy. Once my exams arrived, I demonstrated the endurance of a ascetic, studying for lengthy periods without a break. But in recent years, I’ve watched that capacity for intense focus dissolve into infinite browsing on my phone. My attention span now shrinks like a slug at the tap of a thumb. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like sustenance and more like endurance training. And for someone who creates content for a living, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted to regain that mental elasticity, to halt the mental decline.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a modest vow: every time I encountered a word I didn’t know – whether in a book, an article, or an casual conversation – I would research it and write it down. Not a thing elaborate, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, amusingly, on my phone. Each week, I’d devote a few minutes reviewing the collection back in an attempt to imprint the word into my recall.

The record now spans almost 20 pages, and this tiny habit has been quietly life-changing. The benefit is less about peacocking with uncommon descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I look up and record a term, I feel a slight expansion, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never use “phantom” in conversation, the very act of spotting, logging and reviewing it interrupts the drift into passive, semi-skimmed attention.

There is also a journalling element to it – it functions as something of a journal, a log 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 maintain. It is frequently very impractical. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to pause in the middle, take out my device and type “millennialism” into my Google doc while trying not to bump the stranger pressed against me. It can slow my pace to a maddening crawl. (The e-reader, with its built-in lexicon, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently neglect to do), dutifully browsing through my growing word-hoard like I’m studying for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate perhaps 5% of these terms into my everyday conversation. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “mournful” too. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom used.

Still, it’s made my thinking much keener. I find myself turning less often for the same tired selection of descriptors, and more often for something precise and strong. Rarely are more gratifying than unearthing the exact term you were searching for – like finding the missing puzzle piece that locks the image into place.

At a time when our gadgets siphon off our focus with merciless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use mine as a instrument for deliberate thought. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d forfeited – the pleasure of exercising a intellect that, after years of lazy browsing, is at last stirring again.