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When I was a child, I consumed novels until my vision blurred. Once my exams came around, I exercised the endurance of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without a break. But in lately, I’ve watched that ability for intense focus fade into infinite browsing on my device. My focus now shrinks like a snail at the tap of a finger. Engaging with books for pleasure seems less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for a person who creates content for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted to restore that cognitive flexibility, to halt the brain rot.

So, about a year ago, I made a small vow: every time I came across a word I didn’t know – whether in a book, an article, or an casual conversation – I would research it and record it. Nothing fancy, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a running list kept, ironically, on my phone. Each week, I’d spend a few minutes reviewing the collection back in an effort to imprint the word into my recall.

The record now covers almost twenty sheets, and this small habit has been quietly life-changing. The payoff is less about peacocking with obscure descriptors – which, let’s face it, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a term, I feel a faint expansion, as though some neglected part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never use “phantom” in dialogue, the very process of noticing, logging and revising it breaks the slide into passive, superficial focus.

There is also a journalling aspect to it – it functions as something of a journal, a log of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been pondering and who I’ve been listening to.

It's not as if it’s an simple routine to keep up. It is frequently very impractical. If I’m reading on the tube, I have to pause in the middle, pull out my device and type “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the person squeezed against me. It can reduce my pace to a frustrating crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently neglect to do), conscientiously browsing through my growing word-hoard like I’m preparing for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate perhaps five percent of these terms into my everyday conversation. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “mournful” too. But the majority of them remain like museum pieces – admired and listed but seldom used.

Still, it’s rendered my thinking much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less often for the same tired handful of descriptors, and more often for something exact and strong. Rarely are more gratifying than unearthing the perfect word you were searching for – like locating the missing puzzle piece that snaps the picture into position.

At a time when our devices siphon off our focus with merciless efficiency, it feels rebellious to use mine as a instrument for deliberate thought. And it has given me back something I worried I’d lost – the joy of engaging a mind that, after years of lazy scrolling, is at last waking up again.