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As a child, I consumed books until my vision blurred. Once my GCSEs came around, I demonstrated the stamina of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without pause. But in lately, I’ve observed that ability for intense concentration fade into endless browsing on my phone. My focus now shrinks like a slug at the tap of a finger. Reading for enjoyment feels less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for someone who writes for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I wanted to regain that cognitive flexibility, to stop the brain rot.

Therefore, about a year ago, I made a modest promise: every time I encountered a term I didn’t understand – whether in a novel, an article, or an casual discussion – I would research it and record it. Nothing elaborate, no elegant notebook or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record kept, ironically, on my smartphone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few moments reviewing the collection back in an effort to imprint the word into my memory.

The list now covers almost twenty sheets, and this tiny ritual has been quietly transformative. The benefit is less about showing off with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you sound unbearable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the ritual. Each time I search for and note a word, I feel a slight expansion, as though some underused part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never use “phantom” in conversation, the very process of spotting, logging and revising it breaks the drift into passive, semi-skimmed attention.

There is also a diary-keeping aspect 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 hearing.

It's not as if it’s an easy routine to maintain. It is frequently extremely inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to pause in the middle, take out my device and type “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the stranger pressed against me. It can slow my reading to a frustrating crawl. (The e-reader, with its integrated dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), dutifully browsing 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 everyday speech. “unreformable” was adopted. “mournful” too. But the majority of them remain like museum pieces – admired and catalogued but seldom used.

Still, it’s rendered my thinking much keener. I notice I'm reaching less often for the same tired handful of adjectives, and more often for something exact and muscular. Rarely are more satisfying than unearthing the perfect word you were seeking – like finding the missing component that snaps the picture into position.

At a time when our gadgets siphon off our focus with relentless efficiency, it feels rebellious to use my own as a tool for slow thinking. And it has given me back something I worried I’d lost – the joy of exercising a intellect that, after years of lazy scrolling, is finally stirring again.