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As a youngster, I devoured books until my vision grew hazy. Once my GCSEs arrived, I demonstrated the endurance of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without a break. But in recent years, I’ve observed that ability for deep concentration fade into endless browsing on my device. My focus now contracts like a slug at the tap of a finger. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like sustenance and more like endurance training. And for a person who writes for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to regain that mental elasticity, to stop the brain rot.

So, about a year ago, I made a modest promise: every time I came across a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an piece, or an casual conversation – I would look it up and write it down. Not a thing fancy, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each week, I’d devote a few moments reviewing the collection back in an effort to imprint the word into my memory.

The record now covers almost 20 pages, and this small habit has been subtly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with uncommon adjectives – which, let’s face it, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the practice. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a faint stretch, as though some underused part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never deploy “phantom” in conversation, the very process of noticing, logging and reviewing it interrupts the slide into inactive, superficial focus.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping aspect 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 easy routine to maintain. It is frequently very impractical. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to stop in the middle, take out my phone and type “millenarianism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the stranger pressed against me. It can reduce my pace to a frustrating speed. (The e-reader, with its built-in lexicon, is much easier). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently neglect to do), conscientiously scrolling through my growing word-hoard like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

In practice, I integrate maybe five percent of these terms into my daily speech. “unreformable” was adopted. “mournful” too. But most of them remain like museum pieces – appreciated and listed but seldom handled.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my mind much sharper. I find myself turning less frequently for the same tired handful of descriptors, and more frequently for something precise and muscular. Rarely are more gratifying than unearthing the perfect word you were seeking – like locating the lost puzzle piece that locks the picture into position.

At a time when our gadgets siphon off our focus with merciless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use my own as a instrument for slow thinking. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d forfeited – the pleasure of engaging a intellect that, after a long time of lazy scrolling, is finally stirring again.