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When I was a child, I consumed novels until my eyes blurred. Once my exams arrived, I exercised the stamina of a monk, revising for hours without pause. But in recent years, I’ve observed that capacity for deep focus fade into infinite browsing on my device. My focus now contracts like a slug at the touch of a thumb. Engaging with books for pleasure feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for a person who creates content for a living, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to regain that cognitive flexibility, to halt the brain rot.

So, about a twelve months back, I made a modest promise: every time I encountered a word I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an article, or an overheard discussion – I would research it and write it down. Nothing fancy, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record kept, amusingly, on my smartphone. Each week, I’d spend a few moments reading the list back in an effort to lodge the vocabulary into my memory.

The list now spans almost 20 pages, and this tiny ritual has been subtly life-changing. The payoff is less about showing off with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you sound unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I search for and note a term, I feel a slight stretch, as though some underused part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “phantom” in conversation, the very process of spotting, documenting and revising it interrupts the slide into inactive, superficial focus.

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

Not that it’s an easy habit to maintain. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to stop mid-paragraph, pull out my device and enter “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the person 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 forget to do), conscientiously scrolling through my expanding word-hoard like I’m studying for a word test.

Realistically, I integrate maybe 5% of these words into my everyday speech. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But the majority of them stay like museum pieces – appreciated and listed but rarely used.

Still, it’s rendered my mind much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same tired selection of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and strong. Rarely are more satisfying than unearthing the exact term you were searching for – like finding the lost puzzle piece that snaps the image into position.

In an era when our devices siphon off our focus with merciless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a tool for slow thought. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d lost – the pleasure of engaging a intellect that, after years of lazy browsing, is finally stirring again.