If you, like me, spend the vast majority of your day in front of a PC, you are likely using Microsoft Windows to toggle between programs and organize your work. As someone whose first foray into the world of personal computing occurred in 1984 when DOS was king, I found Windows to be brilliant, a godsend, yet another example of technology simplifying my life and enabling me to work and write more efficiently as a result. But after years of working within a Windows environment, I must publicly declare that I was wrong. Windows has not made my life easier. It has given me A.D.D.

I’m sure my story is familiar. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve opened up an email, started to respond, and gotten an instant message from someone in which they ask me a question that requires opening a browser window. As I paste the link from the browser into the IM window my boss asks me for something that’s in an excel spreadsheet, which I work on for about five minutes until I get another email that I start to respond to, when another IM interrupts my thought process. At any given moment I have five to six programs open, a dozen little windows lined up at the bottom of my screen, and very few completed projects on my desktop. In fact, there have been days when as I’m shutting down my machine at night I realize that an email I composed at 9:51 that morning is still open, sentence dangling, unsent. I realize that I work this way, yet continue to do so, as if it’s out of my power to stop it.

Attention Deficit Disorder is also pervading my home life. A few weekends ago I set out to clean an air conditioner that Jerry and Greg were coming by to pick up so they can combat the sweltering summer heat. As I was halfway done scouring the air conditioner, I started to organize a pile of papers on my dresser. I then took out the trash, cleaned my bathroom counters, and started to organize my CD collection. Partway into the CD project, I went into the living room, sat on the couch, and started to read an article. Eventually the ringing of the buzzer alerted me of Jerry’s arrival and snapped me back into cleaning mode. I think I accomplished half of what I set out to do that night. What on earth was I thinking?

Again, I blame Windows. Somehow Bill Gate’s brainchild has revolutionized the personal computing industry yet rendered us as useless as a classroom of hyperactive 14 year olds who didn’t take their Ritalin. The tools that are supposed to improve our quality of work, and thereby our quality of life, have instead enabled us to produce a lot of half-ass work at once. It’s almost getting to the point that we need support groups or twelve step programs to cast the dirty habit from our lives. I admit that I need it – and acknowledgment is, after all, the first step.