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As a youngster, I devoured books until my vision grew hazy. When my exams arrived, I demonstrated the stamina of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without a break. But in lately, I’ve observed that ability for deep focus fade into infinite browsing on my device. My attention span now shrinks like a snail at the tap of a thumb. Engaging with books for enjoyment seems less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for a person who creates content for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that left me disheartened. I aimed to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the brain rot.

Therefore, about a year ago, I made a modest promise: every time I encountered a word I didn’t know – whether in a book, an article, or an casual discussion – I would look it up and write it down. Not a thing elaborate, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record kept, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d devote a few moments reading the collection back in an attempt to lodge the word into my recall.

The list now spans almost 20 pages, and this small habit has been quietly life-changing. The payoff is less about showing off with uncommon descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a term, I feel a slight expansion, as though some neglected part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in conversation, the very process of noticing, documenting and revising it breaks the slide into passive, semi-skimmed focus.

Additionally, there's a journalling 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.

Not that it’s an easy routine to maintain. It is frequently extremely impractical. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to stop in the middle, take out my device and enter “millenarianism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the stranger squeezed against me. It can reduce my pace to a maddening speed. (The e-reader, with its integrated lexicon, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently neglect to do), conscientiously browsing through my expanding word-hoard like I’m studying for a word test.

Realistically, I integrate maybe 5% of these words into my everyday conversation. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But the majority of them stay like museum pieces – admired and listed but seldom used.

Still, it’s made my thinking much keener. I notice I'm turning less frequently for the same overused handful of descriptors, and more frequently for something exact and muscular. Rarely are more gratifying than unearthing the exact word you were seeking – like locating the lost component that locks the image into place.

In an era when our gadgets siphon off our focus with merciless efficiency, it feels subversive to use mine as a instrument for deliberate thought. And it has given me back something I feared I’d forfeited – the joy of exercising a intellect that, after a long time of slack browsing, is finally waking up again.