[greenpresident]

Not OP but for everyone I know the desktop is mostly either empty or a messy “temp” folder.

[caseyohara]

I treat my desktop as a temp dir and manually empty it every few days.

A desktop hygiene tip I read years ago (but can't remember where) is to increase the size of your desktop icons almost to the point of being ridiculously large, like 96x96. This way your desktop will "fill up" faster, forcing you to clear it more regularly.

[Bluestein]

(*Me fails at the "empty it every few days" stage ...)

[mFixman]

I use it as a Downloads folder.

I always know where my recently downloaded files are, and I have visual feedback of when I should delete them.

I also use it as a temporary launchpad for sorting uploads.

[Bluestein]

Totally. There's absolutely no in-between.-