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When I was a youngster, I consumed novels until my eyes blurred. Once my GCSEs came around, I exercised the endurance of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without a break. But in recent years, I’ve watched that ability for intense concentration fade into infinite browsing on my device. My attention span now shrinks like a slug at the tap of a thumb. Engaging with books for enjoyment seems less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for someone who writes for a living, this is a occupational risk as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the brain rot.

So, about a twelve months back, I made a small promise: every time I came across a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an article, or an overheard discussion – I would look it up and write it down. Nothing fancy, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a running list maintained, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few minutes reading the list back in an attempt to imprint the word into my recall.

The list now covers almost 20 pages, and this small ritual has been subtly 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 cognitive exercise of the ritual. Each time I look up and record a word, I feel a slight expansion, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in conversation, the very process of spotting, logging and reviewing it breaks the slide into inactive, superficial focus.

There is also a journalling aspect to it – it functions as something of a diary, a log 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 easy routine to maintain. It is often extremely inconvenient. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to stop in the middle, pull out my phone and enter “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the stranger squeezed against me. It can reduce my reading to a frustrating crawl. (The e-reader, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often forget to do), conscientiously scrolling through my growing word-hoard like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

In practice, I integrate maybe 5% of these terms into my everyday speech. “unreformable” made the cut. “mournful” too. But the majority of them remain like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom handled.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my thinking much keener. I find myself turning less frequently for the same overused selection of descriptors, and more often for something precise and strong. Few things are more satisfying than discovering the exact term you were seeking – like finding the missing puzzle piece that locks the image into position.

At a time when our devices siphon off our attention with relentless efficiency, it feels rebellious to use my own as a tool for deliberate thinking. And it has given me back something I worried I’d forfeited – the joy of exercising a intellect that, after a long time of lazy browsing, is finally waking up again.