To be honest, if I want to work with files, I'll use a file manager -- a program ostensibly optimized to do such a task. I also heavily favor Gnome Shell, which

To be honest, if I want to work with files, I'll use a file manager -- a program ostensibly optimized to do such a task. I also heavily favor Gnome Shell, which doesn't display anything in the desktop folder by default. When I'm working on Windows, very occasionally will I save to and work from the desktop, but honestly, I've found the Downloads folder on both operating systems has replaced that purpose. I basically now use Downloads as a temp folder/cache for stuff I'm immediately working on and/or plan to discard. This is also regardless of whether I've actually downloaded the file I'm working on, sometimes I'll put stuff in the Downloads folder from my SD card, save a file to it I eventually plan to delete, etc. Downloads in my use case has replaced the Desktop and has almost sort of merged with the "recycle bin" metaphor, but with a little more permanency. I'm curious if anyone has a similar workflow as me.