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When I was a child, I consumed novels until my eyes blurred. Once my GCSEs came around, I exercised the stamina of a ascetic, revising for lengthy periods without a break. But in lately, I’ve observed that ability for intense concentration dissolve into endless browsing on my phone. My attention span now contracts like a slug at the tap of a finger. Engaging with books for pleasure 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 regain that mental elasticity, to stop the brain rot.

So, about a twelve months back, I made a small promise: every time I came across a term I didn’t understand – whether in a novel, an piece, or an overheard discussion – I would look it up and write it down. Not a thing elaborate, no leather-bound journal or fountain pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, ironically, 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 list now covers almost twenty sheets, and this tiny habit has been subtly life-changing. The payoff is less about peacocking with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you appear insufferable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the ritual. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a slight expansion, as though some neglected part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “phantom” in dialogue, the very process of spotting, logging and reviewing it breaks the slide into passive, superficial attention.

Additionally, there's a journalling aspect to it – it acts 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 habit to keep up. It is frequently very inconvenient. If I’m reading on the subway, I have to pause in the middle, pull out my phone and type “millennialism” into my Google doc while trying not to elbow the stranger squeezed against me. It can slow my reading to a frustrating speed. (The e-reader, with its integrated dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently forget to do), dutifully scrolling through my expanding vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a word test.

Realistically, I integrate maybe 5% of these words into my everyday speech. “Incorrigible” made the cut. “Lugubrious” as well. But the majority of them remain like museum pieces – appreciated and listed but seldom used.

Nevertheless, it’s made my mind much keener. I find myself turning less often for the same overused handful of adjectives, and more often for something precise and strong. Rarely are more satisfying than discovering the perfect term you were searching for – like locating the lost component that locks the image into place.

In an era when our gadgets siphon off our focus with relentless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a tool for deliberate thought. And it has restored to me something I worried I’d lost – the joy of engaging a intellect that, after a long time of lazy scrolling, is finally stirring again.