How to stop mulitasking: why multitasking doesn’t work and how to stop multitasking so you can actually get more done. Plus, free iphone and desktop wallpapers that serve as a beautiful reminder to stop multitasking!

Confession time: I am the most absent-minded person I know. I regularly lose coats, sweaters, purses, wallets, books and basically anything that isn’t physically attached to my body.

When I was 10, my mom bought me an awesome double edition of Sweet Valley High at the mall. Jessica and Elizabeth were lifeguards at the beach that summer, so naturally, I wanted to get home quick to find out what happened next.

Guys, I lost that book ten minutes later. To this day, I still don’t know what happened—did I leave it in the jewelry store? Did I set it down in a dressing room?—but suddenly it was gone. POOF. Into thin air.

I actually sat down and cried at the mall. And since then, I’ve been in a war with my own absent-minded nature to stop being there when I should be here. And that means learning how to stop multitasking so I can finally focus on what’s happening in front of me.

Why multi-tasking doesn’t work

Many of us have spent years learning how to multitask, thinking that it would help us get more done. But multitasking just doesn’t work, and now we have to unlearn that bad habit and actively learn how to stop multitasking.

As Time Magazine put it,

“[Multitasking] decreases your productivity by as much as 40%. In addition to lessening your productivity, it also lowers your IQ and shrinks your brain—reducing density in the region responsible for cognitive and emotional control.”

Unfortunately, we’ve all learned the bad habit of splitting our brain into two places and two tasks at once. I did the same thing—I learned how to multitask in college, proudly trumpeted my multitasking skills on my resume, landed a publishing job, and then finally (!) got my head set right.

I first learned about the myth of multitasking when I was working as an editor at a publishing house and helping out with a book called Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life: Train Your Brain to Get More Done in Less Time by a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist and an executive coach.

That was the first time I heard the phrase uni-tasking, and since then, boy oh boy, have I tried hard to uni-task.

It’s not easy.

And I think that as we spend more and more of our time on the Internet, our brains are increasingly losing the ability to focus on one thing at a time.

But there is one piece of advice that’s helped make a dent in my distraction. It’s the phrase I put on repeat every time my brain squirms away from what I’m doing and my eyes glaze over with inattention.

The one piece of advice that helped me learn how to stop multitasking

It’s this:

Exist in the universe of a single task.

I learned this from Leo Babuata of ZenHabits, who says that when your mind starts squirming, you need to remind yourself that the one task in front of you is the whole universe. There is nothing else, so breathe deep, sit in it, and live it.

As he puts it:

“We speed through each task as if it’s nothing, looking already to the next task, until we collapse at the end of the day, exhausted. Having spent a day cranking through nothings.

That’s one approach, and I’ve done it many times. But here’s another: make each task its own universe, its own specialness. Then every moment of your day is ridiculously important and wonderful and powerful.”

I need this reminder over and over again, thousands of times a day.

So if you also have a hard time fighting the urge to multi-task, or if you feel like your brain skips around too quickly, or if you feel like the Internet and social media are eroding your attention, here’s a handy reminder to live in the universe of one task.

You can download this free wallpaper to your desktop, so that you’ll have a visual reminder front-and-center next time you find yourself 10 tabs and 5 windows deep in a rabbithole.

You can also save this same reminder for free as an iphone background, so that you’ll see it next time your brain flits from Pinterest to the weather app to Facebook. I hope it helps you on your path to learning how to stop multitasking.

Consider it your deep breath and your invitation to come back to the universe of a single task.

Click here to go to The Library and download this free wallpaper!

What I’m Reading This Week

The Beginning of Silent Reading Changed Westerners’ Interior Life (Thu-Houng Ha for Quartzy): “People think of reading as the introvert’s hobby: A quiet activity for a person who likes quiet, save for the voices in their head. But in the 5,000 or so years humans have been writing, reading as we conceive it, an asocial solo activity with a book, is a relatively new form of leisure.”

How Writers Can Crush Absolutely Any Obstacle in Their Path (Chad R. Allen): Yes, asking “what’s one simple thing I can do right now” is one of the tips–and yes, it really does help.

What We’re Eating This Week

I just got a final copy of Once Upon a Chef, which means I am (finally!) treating myself to some darn good meals this week.

Sunday: Halibut with Tomatoes and Basil and Cauliflower Puree. Was this meal: delicious, easy, elegant, healthy, or a keeper? I’ll take the all-of-the-above write-in option, please!

Monday: Persian Kofta and Roasted Brussels Sprouts. It was not even funny how good this was and how fancy I felt whipping it up. I can do anything.

Tuesday:  Just kidding–I quit cooking. Off to NYC for me, but luckily, I have this fun event and maybe even some dumplings from Kungfu Kitchen, if I play my cards right.

Wednesday: Times it’s okay to zone out: when eating a sad desk dinner, when eating Pret, when eating alone, when eating at 8 pm. All of the above, thanks.

Thursday: Being terribly basic and going to Uno Pizzeria in Union Station with Jarrett so he can watch the Michigan basketball game the second he picks me up. Now, if that ain’t the glamorous cookbook agent life…

Friday: Back to my kitchen and my new cookbook! We’re making Jenn’s Spaghetti with Kale Pesto because it’s the only pesto I’ll make now; because it’s Friday and I deserve spaghetti; and because I said so. And those are the boxes I most care about checking.

Cheers!