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As a youngster, I consumed books until my eyes grew hazy. When my exams arrived, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, studying for hours without a break. But in recent years, I’ve observed that ability for intense concentration fade into endless browsing on my device. My focus now shrinks like a snail at the touch of a finger. Engaging with books for pleasure feels less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for a person who writes for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted to regain that mental elasticity, to halt the brain rot.

So, about a year ago, I made a modest vow: every time I came across a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an piece, or an casual discussion – I would look it up and record it. Not a thing elaborate, no elegant notebook or stylish pen. Just a running list kept, amusingly, on my phone. Each week, I’d spend a few minutes reviewing the list back in an effort to lodge the vocabulary into my memory.

The list now covers almost 20 pages, and this tiny ritual has been quietly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with uncommon descriptors – which, let’s face it, can make you sound unbearable – and more about the cognitive exercise 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 use “phantom” in conversation, the very process of spotting, documenting and revising it interrupts the slide into inactive, semi-skimmed focus.

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

It's not as if it’s an easy habit to maintain. It is often very impractical. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to pause mid-paragraph, pull out my phone and type “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the stranger squeezed against me. It can slow my reading to a frustrating 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 expanding word-hoard like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

In practice, I integrate maybe five percent of these terms into my everyday conversation. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “Lugubrious” as well. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – appreciated and catalogued but seldom handled.

Nevertheless, it’s made my mind much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less often for the same tired handful of descriptors, and more often for something exact and strong. Few things are more satisfying than discovering the exact term you were searching for – like finding the lost puzzle piece that locks the image into place.

In an era when our gadgets drain our focus with merciless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use mine as a tool for deliberate thinking. And it has given me back something I worried I’d lost – the pleasure of exercising a intellect that, after a long time of slack scrolling, is finally stirring again.