The home office
Not much room, but enough to work in.
There is not a great deal of space here, and there is just enough. This is where twenty-odd hours a week happen.
Cubbies
The cubbies are the thing that makes it work. Supplies and tools stay separated and contained, but everything is visible and reachable, out in the open, and still tidy. Those two are usually in tension and cubbies are the compromise.
Corralling
I have said it a hundred times and it remains the whole game: corralling.
There is an apple-shaped bowl on the desk. In it at the moment: nail varnish, a business card, a rubber band, a couple of coins, a button, a sweet. Picture all of that loose on the desk top instead.
That is the entire principle. The bowl is not tidying anything. It is stopping six small things from becoming six separate decisions.
The paper clip holder is a nice one, bought years ago at a museum shop. It spent a long time holding pins in the sewing nook and has recently gone back to holding paper clips, which is what it was for.
The trick I would steal
Not everything is in the open, and here is the bit worth copying.
An old cutlery organizer, the divided tray from a kitchen drawer, sits on a shelf directly under the desk top. It slides in and out like a drawer, and it holds a great many small things.
Felt pads on the underside so it does not mark the shelf as it slides. There are two of them side by side.
It works perfectly and it cost nothing, because it was already in the house.
Paper
Slots. One each, plus one for bills.
Every loose piece of paper goes into a slot and stays there until the slots are full, at which point everything gets weeded. Filed, dealt with, or thrown out.
It is not elegant. It does mean loose paper is never on the desk.