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When I was a child, I consumed books until my eyes blurred. Once my GCSEs came around, I demonstrated the stamina of a ascetic, studying for hours without a break. But in recent years, I’ve watched that ability for deep concentration fade into infinite browsing on my device. My focus now contracts like a snail at the tap of a thumb. Reading for enjoyment seems less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for someone who creates content for a living, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I aimed to regain that cognitive flexibility, to halt the mental decline.

So, about a twelve months back, I made a small vow: every time I encountered a word I didn’t understand – whether in a novel, an piece, or an overheard discussion – I would look it up and write it down. Nothing elaborate, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record kept, amusingly, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few moments reading the collection back in an effort to imprint the word into my recall.

The list now spans almost twenty sheets, and this tiny habit has been subtly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with obscure descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and record a term, I feel a slight stretch, as though some underused part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in dialogue, the very process of spotting, logging and reviewing it breaks the drift into inactive, superficial attention.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping element to it – it functions as something of a diary, a log of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been pondering and who I’ve been listening to.

Not that it’s an simple habit to maintain. It is often extremely impractical. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to pause in the middle, pull out my device and type “millennialism” into my Google doc while trying not to bump the person pressed against me. It can reduce my reading to a frustrating speed. (The Kindle, with its built-in lexicon, 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 maybe 5% of these terms into my daily speech. “unreformable” was adopted. “mournful” as well. But most of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and catalogued but seldom handled.

Still, it’s rendered my mind much keener. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same overused handful of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and strong. Rarely are more satisfying than unearthing the exact word you were searching for – like finding the missing component that locks the image into place.

In an era when our devices siphon off our attention with relentless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use mine as a instrument for slow thinking. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d forfeited – the joy of engaging a intellect that, after years of slack scrolling, is finally stirring again.