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As a child, I consumed novels until my eyes grew hazy. When my exams arrived, I exercised the endurance of a ascetic, revising for hours without a break. But in lately, I’ve observed that capacity for deep concentration dissolve into endless scrolling on my device. My focus now shrinks like a slug at the touch of a thumb. Engaging with books for enjoyment seems less like sustenance and more like a marathon. And for a person who writes for a profession, this is a occupational risk as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted to regain that mental elasticity, to halt the mental decline.

So, about a year ago, I made a small vow: every time I came across a term I didn’t know – whether in a book, an article, or an overheard discussion – I would research it and record it. Not a thing elaborate, no elegant notebook or stylish pen. Just a running list maintained, amusingly, on my phone. Each week, I’d devote a few minutes reading the collection back in an effort to lodge the vocabulary into my memory.

The list now covers almost 20 pages, and this tiny habit has been quietly transformative. The payoff is less about showing off with obscure adjectives – which, let’s face it, can make you sound unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and record a term, I feel a slight expansion, as though some underused part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never use “eidolon” in conversation, the very act of noticing, documenting and revising it breaks the slide into inactive, semi-skimmed focus.

There is also a diary-keeping aspect to it – it acts as something of a journal, a record of where I’ve been reading, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been hearing.

Not that it’s an easy routine to maintain. It is often very impractical. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to stop mid-paragraph, take out my phone and type “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to bump the person squeezed against me. It can slow my pace to a frustrating crawl. (The e-reader, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). 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 maybe five percent of these words into my daily conversation. “unreformable” was adopted. “Lugubrious” too. But the majority of them stay like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom used.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my thinking much keener. I find myself reaching less frequently for the same overused selection of adjectives, and more often for something exact and strong. Few things are more gratifying than unearthing the exact word you were searching for – like finding the missing puzzle piece that snaps the picture into place.

In an era when our devices siphon off our attention with merciless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use mine as a tool for slow thought. And it has given me back something I worried I’d lost – the joy of engaging a intellect that, after a long time of slack scrolling, is finally waking up again.