Someone described some of the problems autistic people have as being like there was a desk full of mess for where everything was kept in our heads as opposed to a filing cabinet for non-autistics. I think there is a workable analogy to be made, and here is my start on making it. It's not quite as simple as that. See, there are some files that are completely different, some files are much easier to find than others, and then there is indexing going on, plus some things live in one spot on the cluttered desk. As long as they get put back consistently, I can find them pretty well, maybe even better than the stuff that's in the filing cabinet. Plus some things get filed that I don't think most neurotypicals file. Anywho, here is my initial response:

I have TONS and TONS of files and an index to where I find them. Some of my files get filed properly and indexed. The more I use something, the more I know where it is, and I might not even need to check the index. Some things get left out on the desk if I use them REALLY a lot. Or it can happen if I’m to tired to re-file, and then I don’t remember that I left it out on the desk and can’t find it again. So when I get too tired, only the stuff that has a designated place on the desk is particularly accessible, and everything else winds up in a desk mess like the one you described.
It’s not that my processing speed is low- it’s actually really high. It’s that when I start getting tired, things stop being where I expected them to be, or if something is really frustrating and I throw it down in disgust, it’s not where I expected it to be, and that throws me off horribly.