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When I was a child, I consumed books until my eyes blurred. Once my GCSEs arrived, I exercised the stamina of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without pause. But in lately, I’ve observed that ability for deep concentration dissolve into infinite browsing on my device. My attention span now contracts like a slug at the tap of a finger. Reading for pleasure seems less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for a person who creates content for a living, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I wanted to restore that mental elasticity, to halt the mental decline.

Therefore, about a twelve months back, I made a small promise: every time I came across a word I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an article, or an casual conversation – I would research it and write it down. Not a thing fancy, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, ironically, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few minutes reading the collection back in an attempt to imprint the word into my memory.

The list now spans almost twenty sheets, and this tiny ritual has been subtly life-changing. The payoff is less about peacocking with obscure descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a slight expansion, as though some underused part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in conversation, the very act of spotting, documenting and reviewing it interrupts the drift into passive, superficial attention.

There is also a journalling aspect to it – it functions as something of a diary, a log of where I’ve been reading, what I’ve been pondering and who I’ve been hearing.

Not that it’s an easy habit to keep up. It is frequently very impractical. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to stop mid-paragraph, take out my phone and enter “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the person squeezed against me. It can reduce my pace to a maddening speed. (The Kindle, with its integrated dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), conscientiously browsing through my growing word-hoard like I’m studying for a word test.

Realistically, I integrate perhaps five percent of these words into my everyday conversation. “Incorrigible” was adopted. “Lugubrious” as well. But most of them remain like exhibits – admired and catalogued but rarely used.

Still, it’s rendered my thinking much keener. I find myself reaching less often for the same overused selection of adjectives, and more often for something exact and strong. Few things are more satisfying than unearthing the perfect term you were searching for – like finding the lost component that locks the picture into position.

At a time when our gadgets drain our attention with merciless efficiency, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for slow thought. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d forfeited – the joy of exercising a intellect that, after years of slack browsing, is finally waking up again.