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When I was a youngster, I consumed novels until my eyes blurred. Once my GCSEs came around, I exercised the stamina of a ascetic, studying for hours without pause. But in lately, I’ve watched that capacity for deep focus fade into endless browsing on my phone. My attention span now shrinks like a slug at the touch of a finger. Reading for enjoyment seems less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for a person who creates content for a living, 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.

So, about a year ago, I made a small promise: every time I came across a term I didn’t know – whether in a book, an article, or an casual discussion – I would research it and record it. Not a thing fancy, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a running list kept, ironically, on my smartphone. Each week, I’d spend a few minutes reviewing the collection back in an attempt to imprint the vocabulary into my recall.

The record now spans almost twenty sheets, and this small habit has been subtly life-changing. The benefit is less about peacocking with obscure descriptors – which, let’s face it, can make you sound 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 underused part of my brain is flexing again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in dialogue, the very act of spotting, documenting and reviewing it interrupts the slide into inactive, superficial attention.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping element 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.

It's not as if it’s an simple habit to maintain. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to pause in the middle, pull out my phone and enter “millenarianism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the person squeezed against me. It can slow my reading to a maddening crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), dutifully scrolling through my expanding word-hoard like I’m preparing for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate perhaps five percent of these words into my everyday conversation. “unreformable” was adopted. “Lugubrious” as well. But the majority of them remain like museum pieces – admired and listed but seldom used.

Still, it’s rendered my mind much keener. I notice I'm turning less frequently for the same overused handful of descriptors, and more often for something precise and strong. Few things are more satisfying than discovering the perfect word you were seeking – like locating the missing puzzle piece that snaps the image into position.

In an era when our gadgets siphon off our attention with relentless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use mine as a tool for deliberate thought. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d lost – the joy of engaging a mind that, after years of lazy browsing, is at last stirring again.