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When I was a youngster, I consumed books until my eyes blurred. Once my exams came around, I exercised the endurance of a monk, revising for lengthy periods without a break. But in recent years, I’ve watched that ability for intense concentration fade into endless scrolling on my device. My attention span now shrinks like a snail at the tap of a thumb. Reading for pleasure feels less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for someone who writes for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that made me sad. I wanted to regain that mental elasticity, to stop the mental decline.

Therefore, about a year ago, I made a small promise: every time I encountered a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an piece, or an overheard conversation – I would look it up and write it down. Nothing elaborate, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a running list maintained, ironically, on my smartphone. Each week, I’d devote a few moments reviewing the collection back in an attempt to imprint the word into my recall.

The list now spans almost twenty sheets, and this small habit has been subtly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with obscure descriptors – which, let’s face it, can make you appear insufferable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I search for and record a term, I feel a slight expansion, as though some underused part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in conversation, the very process of noticing, documenting and revising it interrupts the slide into inactive, semi-skimmed focus.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping element to it – it acts as something of a diary, a record of where I’ve been reading, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been listening to.

It's not as if it’s an easy habit to keep up. It is often extremely impractical. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to pause mid-paragraph, take out my device and type “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the person pressed against me. It can slow my pace to a maddening speed. (The Kindle, with its integrated lexicon, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often forget to do), dutifully browsing through my expanding vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

Realistically, I integrate perhaps 5% of these terms into my daily conversation. “unreformable” was adopted. “Lugubrious” too. But most of them stay like museum pieces – appreciated and listed but seldom used.

Still, it’s made my mind much keener. I find myself turning less often for the same tired selection of descriptors, and more often for something precise and strong. Few things are more gratifying than unearthing the perfect term you were seeking – like locating the missing puzzle piece that snaps the picture into place.

In an era when our devices drain our attention with relentless effectiveness, it feels subversive to use mine as a tool for deliberate thought. And it has given me back something I feared I’d lost – the joy of exercising a intellect that, after years of slack browsing, is at last waking up again.