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When I was a youngster, I consumed novels until my eyes blurred. When my exams came around, I exercised the endurance of a monk, revising for lengthy periods without a break. But in lately, I’ve observed that capacity for deep focus fade into infinite scrolling on my phone. My focus now shrinks like a slug at the touch of a finger. Engaging with books for pleasure seems less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for someone who creates content for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I aimed to restore that mental elasticity, to halt the brain rot.

Therefore, about a year ago, I made a modest vow: every time I encountered a word I didn’t understand – whether in a book, an piece, or an casual discussion – I would look it up and record it. Nothing fancy, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record kept, amusingly, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few moments reviewing the collection back in an effort to lodge the vocabulary into my memory.

The record now covers almost 20 pages, and this tiny habit has been subtly transformative. The benefit is less about peacocking with uncommon adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I search for and note a word, I feel a slight stretch, as though some underused part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in dialogue, the very act of spotting, logging and revising it interrupts the drift into passive, semi-skimmed focus.

There is also a journalling aspect to it – it functions as something of a journal, a record of where I’ve been reading, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been hearing.

It's not as if it’s an simple 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 “millenarianism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the stranger pressed against me. It can reduce my pace to a frustrating crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated lexicon, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), conscientiously scrolling through my growing word-hoard like I’m studying for a vocabulary test.

Realistically, I incorporate perhaps 5% of these words into my everyday conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But most of them remain like museum pieces – admired and listed but rarely used.

Still, it’s made my mind much keener. I notice I'm turning less often for the same tired selection of descriptors, and more frequently for something exact and strong. Few things are more satisfying than unearthing the exact term you were searching for – like finding the missing puzzle piece that locks the picture into place.

In an era when our devices drain our focus with relentless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for slow thinking. And it has given me back something I feared I’d forfeited – the pleasure of engaging a mind that, after years of slack scrolling, is finally stirring again.