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As a child, I devoured novels until my eyes grew hazy. Once my GCSEs arrived, I demonstrated the endurance of a monk, revising for hours without a break. But in lately, I’ve watched that capacity for intense focus fade into infinite scrolling on my phone. My attention span now contracts like a slug at the touch of a finger. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for a person who writes for a living, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the mental decline.

So, about a year ago, I made a small promise: every time I came across a word I didn’t know – whether in a book, an article, or an overheard discussion – I would research it and write it down. Not a thing fancy, no elegant notebook or stylish pen. Just a running list maintained, amusingly, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few moments reading the list back in an attempt to imprint the word into my recall.

The list now spans almost twenty sheets, and this small ritual has been quietly transformative. The payoff is less about peacocking with uncommon adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you appear insufferable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I search for and record a term, I feel a slight expansion, as though some underused part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in dialogue, the very process of spotting, documenting and reviewing it interrupts the slide into passive, semi-skimmed focus.

Additionally, there's a journalling element to it – it acts as something of a diary, a log 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 easy habit to keep up. It is often extremely impractical. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to stop mid-paragraph, take out my device and type “millenarianism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the stranger squeezed against me. It can slow my pace to a maddening speed. (The e-reader, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), conscientiously browsing through my growing vocabulary collection like I’m studying for a vocabulary test.

In practice, I incorporate maybe five percent of these words into my everyday speech. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “Lugubrious” as well. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom handled.

Still, it’s made my mind much sharper. I find myself turning less often for the same overused selection of descriptors, and more often for something precise and muscular. Few things are more satisfying than unearthing the exact word you were seeking – like locating the lost puzzle piece that snaps the picture into position.

At a time when our devices siphon off our attention with relentless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for deliberate thought. And it has given me back something I feared I’d lost – the pleasure of engaging a intellect that, after a long time of lazy scrolling, is finally stirring again.