[randallsquared]

I'll stack them up simply because that leaves more space for the task I am working on right at this moment.

My guess is that the author of this wouldn't do that, unless the five pieces are all related to the same task. Instead, he'd stop working on the previous task, optionally move those papers to a free spot on his desk (but maybe still spread out as though he were working on it), and put the new papers on top of whatever's left in front of him, and work on them there. One organizational system I've seen that works well with this is the "sheet" system, where you periodically spread a sheet over your desk, first saving out anything you expect to need very quickly, and then after you haven't gone under the sheet for anything in some time, archive everything under the sheet. The "sheet" might actually be one of those plastic desk covers you can buy in an office store.

I do this on my computer, leaving dozen of windows and tabs open until I get back to them, rather than closing them and writing notes on what I need to do. It's easier to resume a task that remains in progress than to start up a task that was stopped, so we arrange to have any interrupted task continue to seem "in progress", even if we haven't worked on it for a while.