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When I was a child, I consumed novels until my eyes blurred. Once my GCSEs arrived, I exercised the stamina of a ascetic, studying for hours without a break. But in lately, I’ve observed that ability for intense concentration fade into endless scrolling on my device. My focus now contracts like a snail at the touch of a thumb. Reading for enjoyment seems less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for a person who creates content for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I wanted to restore that cognitive flexibility, to halt the mental decline.

So, about a twelve months back, I made a small vow: every time I encountered a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an piece, or an casual conversation – I would look it up and record it. Nothing elaborate, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record kept, ironically, on my phone. Each week, I’d devote a few minutes reviewing the collection back in an attempt to imprint the word into my memory.

The list now spans almost twenty sheets, and this tiny habit has been quietly transformative. The payoff is less about peacocking with obscure descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the practice. Each time I look up and note a term, I feel a slight stretch, as though some underused part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never use “phantom” in dialogue, the very process of noticing, logging and reviewing it breaks the slide into passive, semi-skimmed attention.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping aspect to it – it functions as something of a journal, a log of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been hearing.

Not that it’s an easy habit to maintain. It is often extremely inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to stop in the middle, take out my phone and enter “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the stranger squeezed against me. It can slow my reading to a frustrating crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), dutifully browsing through my expanding word-hoard like I’m studying for a vocabulary test.

In practice, I incorporate maybe five percent of these words into my daily conversation. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But most of them stay like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom used.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my mind much keener. I notice I'm turning less often for the same tired selection of adjectives, and more frequently for something exact and muscular. Few things are more satisfying than discovering the perfect word you were searching for – like locating the lost puzzle piece that locks the picture into position.

At a time when our devices drain our focus with relentless efficiency, it feels rebellious to use my own as a tool for deliberate thinking. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d forfeited – the pleasure of engaging a intellect that, after years of lazy scrolling, is finally waking up again.