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As a child, I consumed novels until my eyes grew hazy. Once my exams came around, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, revising for hours without pause. But in recent years, I’ve observed that ability for intense concentration dissolve into endless scrolling on my phone. My focus now contracts like a slug at the touch of a finger. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like endurance training. And for someone who creates content for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted to regain that mental elasticity, to stop the brain rot.

Therefore, about a year ago, I made a small promise: every time I came across a term I didn’t know – 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 phone. Each week, I’d devote a few minutes reading the collection back in an attempt to imprint the word into my recall.

The list now covers almost 20 pages, and this tiny ritual has been subtly life-changing. The benefit is less about showing off with uncommon descriptors – which, let’s face it, can make you sound unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the practice. Each time I search for and record a word, I feel a slight expansion, as though some underused part of my mind is flexing again. Even if I never use “phantom” in dialogue, the very process of noticing, documenting and revising it breaks the drift into passive, superficial focus.

Additionally, there's a journalling element to it – it functions as something of a journal, a record 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 reading on the tube, I have to pause mid-paragraph, pull out my phone and type “millenarianism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the stranger squeezed against me. It can reduce my reading to a frustrating speed. (The e-reader, with its integrated dictionary, is much kinder). And then there’s the revising (which I frequently forget to do), conscientiously scrolling through my growing word-hoard like I’m studying for a word test.

Realistically, I incorporate perhaps five percent of these words into my daily speech. “unreformable” was adopted. “mournful” as well. But most of them remain like exhibits – appreciated and listed but rarely used.

Still, it’s made my thinking much sharper. I find myself turning less frequently for the same overused handful of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and strong. Rarely are more satisfying than unearthing the exact word you were seeking – like finding the lost puzzle piece that snaps the picture into position.

In an era when our gadgets siphon off our focus with relentless efficiency, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for deliberate thinking. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d lost – the pleasure of exercising a mind that, after a long time of lazy browsing, is at last waking up again.