That’s what “they” say, anyways. Let’s see what a Google search turns up, shall we?
Search: clean desk symptom sick mind

Lanfranco Muzi of Italy (and now of Oregon) uses the phrase, “A clean desk is the symptom of a sick mind…” as something of a tagline on his website. Mind you, this isn’t a blog but the C.V. of a person who appears to be quite intelligent. Considering the title of one of his publications, “Experimental and computational validation of BDTPS using a heterogeneous boron phantom”, one has to wonder if a sick mind is really the result of a clean desk, or the result of reading too many papers with 5+ syllable words. (Scusame, Lanfranco, sto scherzando. Va bene?)

Mesa Vista Press makes bumper stickers and vinyl lettering that you can design online (and that surely isn’t ecologically friendly as I’m sure our friend Lanfranco’s heterogeneous phantom borons are). Our saying du jour shows up on their “mental health” page. Since these are design-your-own stickers, I have to wonder who entered this saying on the site. Someone looking to get a rise out of a co-worker, perhaps? I mean, it’s not something you’d have printed up for yourself as a badge of honor. I’ve had a clean desk all month and I’ve no desire to run out and tell the world that I have a sick mind. (What you choose to deduce is entirely up to you.) If I’ve in any way inspired you to go have a bumper sticker made, I should hope it’d be something more positive like “I’m simple” or “I like clean desks!” (Thanks for playing, Mesa Vista!)

A little over a year ago, “Trundling Grunt” entitled his blog post with our popular saying. I like the Grunt (who is 251 years old, a Taurus, and of the year of the Rat (any amateur, or professional for that matter, Chinese astrologers out there who can name which years he might have been born into in 10 seconds or less?(just in case he isn’t actually 251 y.o.)) according to his blog profile)–because he has a picture of his office in his post, just like I’ve been doing! In fact, he scientifically proves that a cluttered desk is not healthy due to surface germs (source: cartoon). Hmmm, have to watch this one. The blog is called “secrets and lies“…. maybe that’s not actually his office in the photo…?! [kudos to you if you survived this paragraph’s crazed and insensitive grammatical twists and turns!]

As far as I can tell, Gary Singh, in this MetroActive article is looking to raise some bru-ha-ha with some barnyard animals as a result of his passion about this subject.

Oh geez. Look at the time. almost 11pm and I’m signed up for the Toastmasters evaluation contest tomorrow morning (meeting begins at 6:30 am). Must begin beauty rest activities immediately. (Sorry to give you the short paragraph, Gary.) Good night!