I think "clean, organized" is more about what is in your head. For the author, a clean desktop helps him keep thoughts and ideas clean and organized. I totally

I think "clean, organized" is more about what is in your head. For the author, a clean desktop helps him keep thoughts and ideas clean and organized. I totally agree in that I've seen some ridiculous slobs come up with brilliant code and ideas - but their thought process is always clear, focused, and organized. To use a nerdy analogy used at work sometimes, our brains have a limited stack size and having to figure out where a file is, what tab to search for, etc, can take up valuable stack spaces. But for some, being organized can help keep that stack clean of everything except what is essential for what you to do your job. I'm similar to the author in that using a window manager, killing all my chrome tabs periodically, and writing down meticulous notes in Evernote help keep me organized and focused on the task at hand, but obviously this will look different for different programmers.