Personally I prefer to keep my desktop as clutter free as possible, when working on projects I like to create root folders as described in the book 'The Productive Programmer'. However I know lots of people like to use the desktop as a dumping ground for things they are currently working on. If you like to use the desktop in this manner then you might be interested in fences. Originally I heard about fences as a Windows 7 feature however on looking into it a bit more I found that this is a feature that can be enabled in Windows XP and Vista, Stardock provide a freeware program called fences.