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As a child, I consumed books until my eyes grew hazy. Once my GCSEs arrived, I demonstrated the stamina of a ascetic, revising for lengthy periods without a break. But in recent years, I’ve watched that ability for deep focus fade into infinite browsing on my device. My focus now shrinks like a slug at the touch of a finger. Reading for enjoyment 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 mental decline.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a modest promise: every time I encountered a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an piece, or an casual conversation – I would research it and write it down. Not a thing fancy, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, ironically, on my phone. Each week, I’d devote a few moments reviewing the list back in an attempt to lodge the word into my memory.

The record now covers almost 20 pages, and this tiny habit has been quietly transformative. The benefit is less about showing off with uncommon adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you sound 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 use “phantom” in dialogue, the very process of noticing, logging and reviewing it breaks the drift into inactive, semi-skimmed 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 pondering and who I’ve been hearing.

Not that it’s an simple habit to keep up. It is frequently very inconvenient. If I’m reading on the tube, I have to pause mid-paragraph, pull out my device and enter “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the stranger squeezed against me. It can reduce my reading to a maddening 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 vocabulary collection like I’m studying for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate maybe 5% of these words into my everyday conversation. “Incorrigible” was adopted. “mournful” as well. But most of them stay like museum pieces – admired and listed but seldom used.

Still, it’s made my mind much keener. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same tired handful of descriptors, and more often for something precise and muscular. Few things are more satisfying than discovering the exact word you were seeking – like locating the missing puzzle piece that locks the image into position.

In an era when our devices siphon off our focus with relentless efficiency, it feels rebellious to use mine as a instrument for slow thought. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d forfeited – the joy of engaging a mind that, after years of slack scrolling, is at last stirring again.