sorting

[HeartOfDarkness]

I sorted by color, then sorted by part. It makes building a lot quicker when I'm not digging through my lego bin for half an hour looking for specific parts.

[Ye Olde Republic]

To be even more specific, in my drawers I also use ziplocks to keep stuff together. ie: in my 'Round brick' drawer I keep 2x2s in a baggie and macaroni in another baggie. Then small but common parts go into a drawer all together. ie: I keep my black and light grey plate in separate baggies in the same drawer except for plates 1x1, 1x2 and 1x3. All my dots (1x1 round and square plate but not modified 1x1 plates) go together in their own drawer while 1x2 and 1x3 plates of all colours go together.
I find that the nice thing about the drawer and baggie system is ease of sorting. I also keep a stack of cheap plastic beer cups on my desk to sort loose parts into and when that cup is full or just in the way I dump it into the right drawer for further sorting later, if needed. Mostly if I'm looking for something I look in the drawer before checking a baggie. That works pretty well and every now and then I can just take a drawer out and sort the colours into their baggies while watching TV or have the kids help me.
Some of my stuff, like regular brick, I keep in tubs and I have found that if a tub is more than about 2/3 to 3/4 full it has too much in it. You've got to have room for your hand to be able to swish around in there without stuff falling out.
This may sound overdone and complicated but I've got one of those crazy 100,000 piece collections and it's really diverse so I have to keep it tamed or I go crazy.
On a side note, I do have quite a few things that I never or rarely use, should I sell some of it? Things like weird 2x2 round top bricks and such...

Trevor

[Gumby]

I sort pretty much the same way as Ye Old Republic's way (ziplocks in drawers). For bricks and plates in light grey that I have large amounts of (eg. 2x4 light grey bricks), those are all sorted and stored separately.

[Karalora]

I sort primarily by type of part. It's easier to tell what color something is from a brief glance than what shape it is. Only right now I have all my tan pieces separated into their own box for a MOC I plan to get around to designing one of these days.

[MoonCheese]

I sort by part type. My collection is around 15000-20000 bricks or so, not like some of your gigantic collections, but I'm also in only a one-bedroom apartment. Most of the castle stuff is unsorted, but I'm making a MOC with it.

My sorting system includes plastic bags, multi-compartment container thingies, some small drawers, and some bins, among other miscellaneous storage. I group a lot of types together. Like I have a separate area for each of 1*1, 1*2, 1*3, and 1*4 bricks, but 1*6 and longer are all grouped together in a bin.

[Prince Imdol]

Sorting by parts is way better. If you don't sort by parts, you will get into trouble later.


P.I

[Mog]

Sorting by parts is way better. If you don't sort by parts, you will get into trouble later.

But sorting by color is more aesthetically pleasing. :p

I'd love to have enough bricks to do both. Right now I sort by color, but I do see the benefits of sorting by shape. I think I'm going to do that instead. *off to sort*

P.S. Am I the only one that loves sorting? I think I'm just some weird organizing nut, because I love alphabetizing my books too. I'm thinking about getting an Itso storage system for my bricks in my new place. Like LEGO, they're kind of pricey but I love the idea of having the perfect amount of bins in shelves that fit them perfectly. Plus, it sort of fits...putting a modular construction toy inside of a modular construction storage system...OK, I'll stop.

[sirJacob]

this is what i have learned:
if i sort my pieces i can build faster, but if i have just a bucket full of different parts it's easyer to get new ideas and sullutions.
so it depends on what you want to do.
if you already know what to build then it's better to have the pieces sorted, and i sort them by color and then by type.

but what i think is the best with lego is to have a lot of different pieces in any colour and shape in a huge bucket and start from there. to see a piece and go on from that!