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As a youngster, I consumed novels until my vision blurred. Once my exams came around, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, studying for hours without pause. But in lately, I’ve watched that capacity for deep concentration dissolve into infinite browsing on my device. My attention span now shrinks like a slug at the touch of a finger. Reading for enjoyment feels less like sustenance and more like endurance training. And for a person who writes for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. 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 encountered a word I didn’t understand – whether in a book, an piece, or an casual discussion – I would look it up and write it down. Nothing fancy, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a running list maintained, amusingly, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d devote a few moments reviewing the collection back in an attempt to lodge the vocabulary into my recall.

The record now covers almost 20 pages, and this small habit has been quietly transformative. The benefit is less about showing off with obscure descriptors – which, let’s face it, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I look up and note a term, I feel a slight stretch, as though some neglected part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never deploy “phantom” in conversation, the very act of spotting, logging and revising it breaks the drift into passive, semi-skimmed attention.

There is also a journalling aspect to it – it acts as something of a diary, a record of where I’ve been reading, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been listening to.

Not that it’s an simple habit to keep up. It is frequently very impractical. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to stop mid-paragraph, take out my phone and type “millenarianism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the stranger squeezed against me. It can slow my pace to a frustrating speed. (The e-reader, with its integrated dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently forget to do), dutifully scrolling through my expanding word-hoard like I’m preparing for a word test.

Realistically, I incorporate maybe 5% of these terms into my daily conversation. “Incorrigible” was adopted. “Lugubrious” too. But most of them stay like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom handled.

Still, it’s rendered my thinking much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same overused handful of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and muscular. Rarely are more satisfying than unearthing the exact word you were seeking – like finding the missing component that snaps the picture into place.

In an era when our gadgets drain our focus with merciless efficiency, it feels subversive to use mine as a tool for slow thought. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d lost – the pleasure of exercising a intellect that, after years of lazy browsing, is finally stirring again.