I used to have little toys on my desk. Picked up the habit two employers ago. It was fascinating to watch people come in, begin talking about an issue, problem or just to shoot the breeze, and invariably (if they stayed more than a minute) pick up one of the objects. Sometimes it seemed like an unconscious urge of which they were entirely unaware: without looking, they'd play with it while paying complete attention to the conversation. Other times they would pick up something, rearrange it and then turn it towards me with a grin and an air of "ta-daa" - or they'd put it back down, mildly embarrassed.

The coolest people were usually the least self-conscious about it.

Every so often I'd come in and find something that someone had done with one or more toys while I'd stepped out...some not exactly work-safe, but this was a place where the boundaries of work-safe were a little more elastic than those in most organizations.

Every so often I'd grab one or another toy and mess with it myself as a way of occupying the monkey brain while I thought about something.

My current office is tiny and has evil systems furniture which is inflexible and can't be moved. The layout really gets in the way of having these objects and a place for visitors to reach them. I have fewer people stopping by and just "hanging out," and I think it's at least in part due to both the size of the office and the lack of comforts. The previous office had big comfy chairs I, um, located, and I brought in incandescent lighting, turning off the fluorescents.

I'm going to come in one weekend and just nuke everything, then bring in something simple and clean from Ikea. (Hey, good-looking's important, but if I'm funding it out of my own pocket, it's gotta be cheap too.) The Facilities people will probably want to at least severely maim me, but your post made me realize that one way of preventing clutter is to reinvent the space and change the focus. I want my fun back, and it would be great to reduce the possibility of accumulating clutter.