In an interview in the Guardian with Oxford professor of mathematics Marcus du Sautoy, Aida Eidemariam writes, "He works at home, in his counter-intuitively messy office (he finds searching for things helps him make connections)."
Hooray, proof at last there's a good reason for having a messy office. And I've just cleaned mine up! Never mind, I have faith it won't stay this way for long.
And here's another encouraging revelation: "He doesn't do long hours, because he finds his work exhausting. 'I can often be squirming around so much in my chair trying to work out what's going on that I've probably ended up running, you know, 10km by the end of the day.'"
Yes! My writing also involves a lot of squirming...How about yours?