Assuming you're a desk worker (cubical accepted ). What's on your desk?

I ask for two reasons.

1. I've never been much for personal objects in my cubicals or cabinets. My walls are pretty bare. No funny pictures or comics and no family pictures. Such things can be funny once but they, and personal items, are somewhat boring after a while. For personal objects, I have a small 2"x2" fractal image taped on a computer and a small gargoyle statue behind and to the left of my laptop. Even pictures aren't something I keep in view. Looking at wife or kids doesn't inspire me to do better or worse and I'm not in a job where the impression of customers (for example) matter.

2. I am fairly on top of tidying up my desk. No I'm not in OCD panic mode to keep things off of my desk. I do tend to put things away. I guess it's the "if I need it, it should be where it belongs" mode. Same as I do at home. Before going to bed, I'll tidy up, put dishes in the dishwasher, wipe down the counters, put my badge and laptop back near my backpack, etc. Most of the time, stuff on the desk is annoying because I'll put things down and it'll slide off to the floor. So I keep things picked up.

And every year or so I'll wander through my cabinets and file drawers and purge unnecessary stuff. If I haven't looked at the stuff in a while, it's likely pitched. If it's computer gear, it gets sent to IT or put in the shared area (the 'cage'), and the various disks and such are put in the shared area. I just finished up this morning purging the cabinets, etc.

I do have my laptop, two desktop systems with Linux with monitors, mice, and keyboards. But I use synergy to use my laptop's keyboard and mouse for the three systems. I built a stand for the desktops and monitors so everything's oriented into an 'A' with me facing the bar (huh, that's actually pretty accurate ).


But none of it is due to some manager coming through telling me to clean my space. It's my own personal twist

I do get poked at about it from the guys though. "If a messy desk is the sign of a messy mind, what's an empty desk a sign of?"

Of course too are the articles saying messy desks are actually productive, but only if you're a conservative it seems

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2088359/Messy-desks-office-actually-lead-employees-think-clearly-say-researchers.html

I do find that I like going into a messy shop (reading the article). One of my most favorite gaming stores back in the 70's and 80's was 'Little Soldier' in Alexandria Virginia. The place was pretty cluttered but it made finding the occasional game gem a joy. I picked up lots of misc odd gaming gear.

But this:

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is a bit over the top. I'd be afraid of stuff falling on the floor and getting cleaned up by the cleaning staff. Not to mention trying to find something I need. Does it take longer to find it in the stacks when you need it, or longer to organize it all to make it easy to find so when you need it, it's right at your fingertips.

Probably the former if you only need that one paper once every few months.

Perhaps this is a better posting, more along where I'm at:

http://www.adistantsoil.com/2009/01/31/a-messy-desk-is-a-sign-of/

I like the 'visual noise' comment and of course her comments on over paying taxes because she didn't find all her receipts is a good point towards having things put away.


Carl

My desk is currently a cluttered mess because I was forced to vacate my office and temporarily use a cubicle. Our Executive Director hates clutter, so I have all of my boxes of stuff under and on my desk in a form of protest.

But this:

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is a bit over the top.

Pshaw.  I had a coworker whose office had, and I'm not exaggerating, knee-high stacks of documents throughout.  All over the floor, on her desk, table and credenzas; copies of copies of copies of stuff.  It was a fucking freak show. 

But she knew exactly what and where everything was.  You could ask her for something from five years ago and she'd lay her hands on it within 90 seconds.