Here's another great article, from The New Yorker magazine, by Malcolm Gladwell. (pdf version)
Why Great? Because I've a messy desk and Gladwell says that this is not only natural for some people, but necessary. (I've also got very messy handwriting and my Mum maintains this is because my brain works far too fast for my hand to keep up. Wise woman my Mum).
It starts:
"On a busy day, a typical air-traffic controller might be in charge of as many as twenty-five airplanes at a time--some ascending, some descending, each at a different altitude and travelling at a different speed. He peers at a large, monochromatic radar console, tracking the movement of tiny tagged blips moving slowly across the screen. He talks to the sector where a plane is headed, and talks to the pilots passing through his sector, and talks to the other controllers about any new traffic on the horizon. And, as a controller juggles all those planes overhead, he scribbles notes on little pieces of paper, moving them around on his desk as he does. Air-traffic control depends on computers and radar. It also depends, heavily, on paper and ink".
