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As a youngster, I devoured novels until my vision grew hazy. 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 dissolve into infinite browsing on my phone. My attention span now shrinks like a slug at the tap of a finger. Engaging with books for enjoyment seems less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for someone who creates content for a living, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the mental decline.

Therefore, about a year ago, I made a small vow: every time I came across a term I didn’t understand – whether in a novel, an article, or an overheard conversation – I would look it up and write it down. Not a thing fancy, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a running list maintained, amusingly, on my phone. Each week, I’d spend a few moments reviewing the collection back in an attempt to imprint the word into my recall.

The list now spans almost 20 pages, and this tiny ritual has been subtly transformative. The payoff is less about peacocking with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a faint 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 revising it interrupts the slide into passive, semi-skimmed attention.

There is also a journalling element 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.

It's not as if it’s an easy routine to keep up. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to stop in the middle, take out my device and type “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the person squeezed against me. It can slow my pace to a frustrating speed. (The e-reader, with its integrated lexicon, is much kinder). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently forget to do), dutifully browsing through my growing vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a word test.

Realistically, I incorporate perhaps 5% of these terms into my everyday speech. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “Lugubrious” as well. But most of them remain like museum pieces – appreciated and listed but rarely handled.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my mind much sharper. I find myself reaching less often for the same overused handful of descriptors, and more frequently for something precise and muscular. Few things are more gratifying than unearthing the perfect word you were seeking – like locating the lost component that snaps the image into position.

In an era when our gadgets drain our attention with merciless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use my own as a tool for slow thought. And it has given me back something I worried I’d lost – the pleasure of engaging a mind that, after a long time of slack scrolling, is finally waking up again.