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As a child, I devoured books until my vision blurred. When my GCSEs came around, I demonstrated the endurance of a ascetic, studying for hours without a break. But in recent years, I’ve watched that capacity for deep concentration dissolve into infinite scrolling on my phone. My focus now contracts like a snail at the touch of a finger. Reading for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for someone who creates content for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to restore that cognitive flexibility, to halt the brain rot.

So, about a twelve months back, I made a modest promise: every time I encountered a word I didn’t understand – whether in a book, an article, or an casual discussion – I would look it up and write it down. Nothing fancy, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record kept, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d devote a few moments reviewing the collection back in an attempt to lodge the word into my memory.

The record now spans almost twenty sheets, and this small habit has been quietly life-changing. The payoff is less about showing off with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I search for and note a term, I feel a slight stretch, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in conversation, the very process of noticing, logging and reviewing it breaks the drift into inactive, semi-skimmed focus.

There is also a diary-keeping element to it – it functions as something of a diary, a record of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been listening to.

It's not as if it’s an simple habit to keep up. It is frequently very inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to pause 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 reduce my reading to a frustrating speed. (The Kindle, with its built-in dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), dutifully scrolling through my growing word-hoard like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

Realistically, I integrate perhaps 5% of these terms into my daily conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “mournful” too. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and catalogued but seldom used.

Still, it’s rendered my mind much keener. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same overused handful of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and strong. Few things are more gratifying than unearthing the exact word you were seeking – like finding the missing puzzle piece that locks the picture into position.

In an era when our devices siphon off our attention with merciless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use my own as a instrument for deliberate thought. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d lost – the joy of engaging a mind that, after a long time of slack scrolling, is at last waking up again.