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When I was a youngster, I consumed books until my eyes blurred. Once my exams arrived, I exercised the stamina of a monk, revising for hours without a break. But in recent years, I’ve watched that ability for deep focus fade into endless browsing on my device. My attention span now shrinks like a snail at the touch of a finger. Reading for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for a person who creates content for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the mental decline.

Therefore, about a year ago, I made a modest promise: every time I encountered a word I didn’t know – whether in a book, an piece, or an overheard discussion – I would research it and write it down. Not a thing elaborate, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a running list kept, amusingly, on my phone. Each week, I’d spend a few minutes reviewing the list back in an attempt to lodge the vocabulary into my recall.

The record now spans almost 20 pages, and this tiny ritual has been quietly transformative. The benefit is less about peacocking with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the practice. Each time I search for and record a term, I feel a faint stretch, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never use “phantom” in conversation, the very act of noticing, logging and revising it breaks the drift into passive, semi-skimmed focus.

There is also a diary-keeping aspect to it – it functions as something of a journal, a log of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been listening to.

It's not as if it’s an simple routine to keep up. It is often extremely impractical. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to pause mid-paragraph, pull out my device and type “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the stranger pressed against me. It can slow my reading to a maddening crawl. (The Kindle, with its built-in lexicon, is much easier). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently neglect to do), conscientiously browsing through my expanding word-hoard like I’m preparing for a word test.

Realistically, I incorporate maybe 5% of these terms into my everyday speech. “unreformable” was adopted. “Lugubrious” as well. But most of them stay like exhibits – admired and catalogued but seldom used.

Still, it’s made my mind much keener. I notice I'm reaching less often for the same overused selection of adjectives, and more often for something precise and muscular. Rarely are more satisfying than unearthing the perfect word you were seeking – like locating the missing puzzle piece that locks the picture into position.

At a time when our gadgets drain our attention with merciless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for deliberate thought. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d forfeited – the pleasure of exercising a mind that, after a long time of lazy browsing, is finally stirring again.