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When I was a youngster, I devoured novels until my vision blurred. Once my GCSEs came around, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, studying for hours without a break. But in lately, I’ve observed that capacity for intense concentration fade into infinite browsing on my device. My attention span now shrinks like a slug at the tap 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.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a modest promise: every time I came across a term I didn’t know – whether in a book, an piece, or an casual conversation – I would look it up and record it. Not a thing elaborate, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record kept, amusingly, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d devote a few minutes reviewing the list back in an effort to imprint the vocabulary into my recall.

The record now spans almost twenty sheets, and this tiny habit has been subtly transformative. The payoff is less about peacocking with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the practice. Each time I search for and record a word, I feel a slight expansion, as though some neglected part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never use “phantom” in conversation, the very process of spotting, documenting and reviewing it interrupts the slide into inactive, superficial focus.

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

Not that it’s an easy habit to keep up. It is frequently very impractical. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to pause in the middle, take out my device and type “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the person squeezed against me. It can reduce my reading to a maddening crawl. (The e-reader, with its built-in lexicon, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently neglect to do), conscientiously browsing through my growing vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

Realistically, I integrate maybe five percent of these words into my everyday conversation. “Incorrigible” was adopted. “mournful” as well. But the majority of them stay like museum pieces – admired and catalogued but rarely used.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my thinking much sharper. I find myself turning less often for the same tired selection of adjectives, and more often for something exact and strong. Few things are more gratifying than discovering the exact word you were seeking – like locating the missing puzzle piece that locks the picture into position.

In an era when our devices drain our attention with relentless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for slow thinking. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d lost – the joy of exercising a mind that, after a long time of lazy browsing, is at last stirring again.