Often that image is more visual than verbal. This concern is often fueled by interviews with successful writers whose work habits, experiences, and, yes, personal appearances, bear little resemblance to our own. What's needed is a little healthy myth-popping. Real writers are organized. Such a writer's desk wouldn't look like ours, with papers and folders strewn everywhere, and notes from our last phone interview scrawled on a piece of junk mail.
Chances are, the answer is no.
If you can lay your hands on the folder you need, or read those scrawled notes when it's time to type up the interview, maybe you don't need color-coded files. And no matter how messy your desk is, somewhere there is a highly successful author whose work-space looks far worse than yours. Real writers are learned. Many of us cherish the image of the scholarly writer, coke-bottle glasses perched on an inkstained nose, surrounded by shelves and shelves of esoteric books. Some of the world's most respected authors worked on tramp steamers, or fought in prize rings, or swept floors, or washed dishes.