Agreed to an extent. I think there are different axes at play here though.

Their desk and computer setup is chaotic, but their "task system" is probably very minimalist. Either it's nonexistent - everything's in their head. Or it's a scribble pad with the next few things they need to do which they cross off and then write new things. Or it's a .txt. At most it's a .md but even that's already stretching it.

What it's not is an immaculately structured maximalist Notion workspace - which is what the "clean desk" people you're talking about often prefer.