My Xfce desktop — I like to keep it clean.

Clean desktop

I use 5 panels: one visible; four hidden. GKrellM is on the right. I normally don't store files on the desktop—just things that are in use today.

Visible panel on top includes the things I use frequently:
devices Application Menu, devices Show Desktop, devices Thunar (file manager), devices Xfce-terminal, devices Firefox-left, devices Bluefish (editor), devices Thunderbird, devices Firefox, devices MC (file manager), devices Workplace Switcher (3 workspaces), devices Windows Buttons, devices Audio Mixer, devices Clipman, devices Screenshot, devices Notification Area (normally with Net_applet,) devices DateTime.

I have two Firefoxes because in normal useage (right), I clear cookies on close. However, some sites work better with cookies retained, so the left one retains. My Firefox setup is complex.

Hidden panels — appear when hovered.

Clean desktop panels

Top left—A opens my ~/active directory containing things I use routinely, like my investments and expenses spreadsheets, and other things I might open daily, but don't want cluttering the desktop.

Bottom left—Three launchers.
Htop  is Htop, so I can quickly see what's running.
RNS  is root "netstat -peanut". Root so I see the program names. I sudo/NOPASSWD the script that starts it, so it runs-on-click.
T 3  starts Firefox or Chrome in a different user account. It's sudo/NOPASSWD. I use it for access to financial web sites, etc. Running as a user dedicated solely to that purpose makes it easy to reset if necessary.

Right mid (vertical)—One launcher.
NAS  opens a directory that has my mounting scripts for NASes and encrypted containers. The scripts toggle mount/unmount and change the icon displayed in the folder. Encrypted uses sudo, of course.

Bottom right—Seven launchers. Things I don't use much, but like to have handy.
trashwol  Since I normally delete rather than trash, it's not worth much desktop space.
devices  Devices list.
devices  Switch user.
devices  Reload desktop.
devices  Mount DVD/CD. They stopped appearing as click-mountable in Thunar, and this one makes them magically appear.
devices  Adjust frequency threshold. That's normally set at 50, but when running Virtualboxes, I sometimes set it lower for better performance.
devices  Draknetcenter runs sudo/NOPASSWD to cover the unfortunate situation where managing networks requires root (like we're living in the 90's.)

Xfce helps keep things clean and organized by making it easy to Application Menumodify the Application Menu.
Things that I want quickly available, but, not on one of the hidden panels, can be added by manually editing xfce-applications.menu. From VirtualBox to xine-start-playlist are in this category. I also add my own sections with additional items, like T-Scripts to launch some scripts. I move the menu default to /home/me/.config/menus/ and do the mods there. The basic menu is PCLinuxOS style.