Hi. This is the philosophy I have used for many years.
I have been working on an electronic workbench for about 40 years now, and it is my observation that on the typical 3 x 8 foot area of the bench the active area where the magic happens comes down to about 1 square foot in the middle.
This is acceptable as long as the other 23 ft^2 are occupied by stuff that legitimately should be there. This includes equipment actually used for the project (laptop, scope, hand tools in use, etc), equipment unused for the current project but which doesn't steal space from equipment that has a higher priority, tools that normally live somewhere else but are regularly used for the project at hand and parts/supplies that also have a usual and customary home on the bench (such as hookup wire)
As I said, stuff with a legitimate reason for staying on the bench includes small tools used often while working. As soon as some pair of pliers may not be used in the next half hour it should go back where it lives.
I purge my bench of unneeded stuff regularly, about once an hour to keep the clutter down to a dull roar. I got into this habit after a few years in my early career when I REALLY got fed up with always searching for some errant tool or other thing after forgetting where I had misplaced it two hours prior. I just decided that I wasn't going to be spending 33% of my time anymore looking for some small thing that I needed to get on with doing something useful. Now, if I want a certain screwdriver, I know exactly where to find it.
So everything I have has a place to live and gets put there when not needed.
This can be really tough to arrange especially if you have a lot of parts/handtools/crap that has never been assigned a place to live. And should give birth to a special project or two to create places for that - drawers/shelves/etc.