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When I was a youngster, I devoured books until my eyes grew hazy. When my GCSEs came around, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, studying for lengthy periods without pause. But in recent years, I’ve observed that capacity for intense concentration fade into endless scrolling on my phone. My focus now contracts like a slug at the tap of a thumb. Reading for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for someone who writes for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted 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 know – whether in a novel, an article, or an overheard conversation – I would look it up and record it. Not a thing elaborate, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, ironically, on my phone. Each week, I’d devote a few moments reviewing the list back in an effort to imprint the word into my memory.

The list now spans almost twenty sheets, and this small habit has been quietly life-changing. The payoff is less about peacocking with uncommon adjectives – which, let’s face it, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a term, I feel a faint stretch, as though some underused part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “phantom” in dialogue, the very act of spotting, documenting and reviewing it breaks the slide into passive, superficial focus.

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

Not that it’s an simple habit to keep up. It is often extremely impractical. If I’m reading on the tube, I have to stop in the middle, pull out my phone and type “millennialism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the stranger pressed against me. It can slow my reading to a maddening crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often forget to do), conscientiously scrolling through my expanding word-hoard like I’m studying for a vocabulary test.

Realistically, I integrate maybe five percent of these terms into my daily conversation. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But the majority of them remain like exhibits – appreciated and catalogued but rarely handled.

Nevertheless, it’s made my thinking much sharper. I find myself turning less frequently for the same overused handful of adjectives, and more often for something exact and strong. Few things are more gratifying than unearthing the exact term you were searching for – like locating the missing component that snaps the picture into position.

At a time when our devices siphon off our attention with merciless efficiency, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for slow thinking. And it has given me back something I feared I’d lost – the joy of engaging a intellect that, after a long time of slack browsing, is finally waking up again.