Messy desk, messy mind? No.

Ten years ago today (give or take a day or two), I posted this:

"If you're a 'knowledge worker' feeling guilty about all the clutter on your desk, you can stop now. Psychologists say the 'mess' actually constitutes a useful 'mental map' of what's going on in that busy little head of yours. At least that's what this article claims:

In praise of clutter"

The article is still online and still interesting.

My cubicle at work isn't overly cluttered, but it does contain a few idiosyncratic items (besides my laptop and big-screen monitor):

• A wind up robot toy
• An old-fashioned green-glass insulator from a telephone pole, used as a paperweight
• A tiny Lucite house with an attached roach clip that holds up a spiky seed pod
• A stack of cards with quirky statements on them (such as "Anonymous: Nobody knows my name" and "Cake Walk") that an artist gave me
• Three very small framed artworks: an abstract; a picture of dark clouds (or possibly flying saucers?) hovering over a landscape; a stylized picture of a male figure being inundated with electronic zig-zags
• A mousepad that looks like a Persian carpet, which I inherited from a former employee
• A vintage 1913 postcard that says "Greetings from Newark"

So that's my mental map... just so you don't get lost.