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When I was a youngster, I consumed books until my eyes blurred. Once my exams arrived, I demonstrated the stamina of a monk, studying for hours without a break. But in lately, I’ve watched that capacity for intense focus fade into endless browsing on my device. My focus now contracts like a slug at the touch of a thumb. Reading for pleasure seems less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for someone who writes for a living, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to restore that mental elasticity, to halt the mental decline.

So, about a twelve months back, I made a small vow: every time I came across a word I didn’t understand – whether in a novel, an article, or an overheard discussion – I would research it and record it. Nothing elaborate, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a running list kept, amusingly, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few minutes reviewing the collection back in an effort to imprint the word into my memory.

The record now covers almost 20 pages, and this tiny ritual has been subtly transformative. The benefit is less about peacocking with uncommon descriptors – which, to be honest, can make you sound insufferable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the ritual. Each time I search for and note a term, I feel a faint stretch, as though some neglected part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in conversation, the very process of spotting, logging and reviewing it interrupts the drift into passive, semi-skimmed attention.

There is also a journalling element to it – it acts as something of a journal, a record 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 maintain. It is frequently very impractical. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to stop mid-paragraph, take out my phone and enter “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the person pressed against me. It can slow my reading to a maddening speed. (The Kindle, with its built-in dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently neglect to do), conscientiously scrolling through my expanding vocabulary collection like I’m studying for a word test.

In practice, I incorporate maybe five percent of these words into my daily speech. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “Lugubrious” as well. But the majority of them remain like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom handled.

Still, it’s rendered my thinking much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less often for the same tired handful of adjectives, and more often for something precise and muscular. Few things are more gratifying than unearthing the exact term you were seeking – like finding the lost puzzle piece that snaps the image into place.

At a time when our devices drain our focus with merciless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use mine as a tool for slow thinking. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d lost – the pleasure of engaging a mind that, after years of slack browsing, is at last stirring again.