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As a youngster, I devoured books until my eyes blurred. Once my exams came around, I exercised the stamina of a monk, studying for hours without a break. But in recent years, I’ve observed that ability for deep concentration dissolve into endless browsing on my phone. My focus now shrinks like a snail at the tap of a thumb. Engaging with books for pleasure seems less like nourishment 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 aimed to regain that cognitive flexibility, to stop the brain rot.

So, 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 casual discussion – I would research it and write it down. Not a thing elaborate, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a running list kept, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d devote a few minutes reading the collection back in an attempt to imprint the vocabulary into my recall.

The record now covers almost 20 pages, and this small ritual has been quietly transformative. The payoff is less about showing off with uncommon 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 note a word, 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 process of noticing, documenting and revising it interrupts the drift into inactive, superficial attention.

Additionally, there's a journalling aspect to it – it acts as something of a diary, a log of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been pondering and who I’ve been hearing.

It's not as if it’s an easy routine to keep up. It is frequently very inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to pause mid-paragraph, pull out my phone and enter “millennialism” into my Google doc while trying not to bump the person pressed against me. It can reduce my pace to a frustrating crawl. (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 word-hoard like I’m preparing for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate maybe 5% of these words into my everyday conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “mournful” too. But the majority of them stay like museum pieces – appreciated and listed but rarely used.

Nevertheless, it’s made my mind much keener. I notice I'm reaching less often for the same overused selection of descriptors, and more frequently for something exact and strong. Few things are more satisfying than discovering the exact word you were searching for – like finding the missing puzzle piece that locks the image into position.

At a time when our devices drain our focus with merciless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for slow thought. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d forfeited – the joy of exercising a intellect that, after a long time of lazy browsing, is finally stirring again.