Perhaps I'll take some pictures, but right now I think some text will suffice.

I sorted my LEGO back in 2010, it took a month, as my LEGO collection is huge, I've been getting them since 1997, and my older brother had been getting them since before that, plus my younger brothers have added, so it's really, really big.

I've done some more sorting since then to refine the categories, but these are what I have now:

minifigure parts
accessories
basic bricks
special bricks
small plates
large plates
special plates
curves
basic slopes
Technic
Bionicle
extra huge bricks
wedges
circular
other
dark grey
transparent
plants

All of these, excluding the last three, are based on shape. I find this best since if you sort by colour it may be harder to distinguish the shape with everything being the same shade.

I've made an exception for the last three, since I use dark grey basic bricks, plates, and slopes very commonly it's more convenient. Having transparent bricks together is great for scifi stuff, and green and brown pieces are really great for set decoration.

I find sorting very useful. Do it now before your LEGO collection grows any more.
You can build things faster than before, plus you'll have a more accurate idea of how many pieces you have of each shape.

I forgot to mention something:

It's best to store bricks in flat containers, and never use tall ones like brick buckets.
With flat containers, you can easily scoop through the bricks easily, with tall containers, it's difficult to find bricks at the bottom.

I'd also recommend drawers or containers with lids to protect the bricks from dust.

I sort my bricks on color, size, rarity and height (the last one's a bit odd, I know but it work).

I use these in combination with this. I've had these baskets since a was a toddler but never had real use for them until most recently. I have them situated in the attic, leaving a ton of room to build.

My advice would be to clean up and re-sort your bricks and workstation every 2 months or so, as to not lose any bricks. A good way to clean them or the drawers is to either to dust them with a duster or wash them in the sink (be sure to plug it!). Also if you have siblings (which I don't), (girl/boy)friend or family who's willing to help, let them! It takes of a lot of workload.

I just purchased a new 10-drawer rolling cart for LEGO storage and I'm trying to decide how to best use it. Any ideas for me? The drawers are fairly large. Here it is:

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I have a special way to sort my minifigs, I have boxes for:
Head accessories
Heads
Torsos(including hands and arms)
Pants
Accessories
Full minifigs(such as for a brickfilm, or minifigs I want to keep whole)
And RSpider, maybe for color sorting?

Thanks for the suggestions, both of you! I did indeed decide to use it to sort regular bricks by color. I spent part of the day today doing just that. As of now, almost all of my bricks are now sorted by color and by piece type. I stacked them by piece type so I have long columns in each of the drawers (columns of red 2x4, 1x4, 2x2, etc). I've finished Red, Blue,   and Yellow. Now I need to finish all of the other colors. I decided I would use one of the drawers to hold car/vehicle pieces. The trays are large enough to hold all of the elements, plus it is easy to look through them because of how shallow they are. That cart was a good purchase, the only downside is the drawers can sometimes come loose while sliding them in and out. This is a minor detail however.

My biggest trouble right now is sorting out a lot of the pieces that are MISC. that I don't have a lot of. I'll probably end up grouping some of them into generic categories like Architecture, Interiors, etc. I've actually almost completely sorted out my collection, aside from the full sets that are built and in storage boxes.

Last edited by Repelling Spider (July 22, 2012 (06:09pm))

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I don't actually have this organizer thingy but from what I've seen on the Lego store it looks pretty nice...though pricey (it is Lego, what do you expect?

I tend to use boxes for my LEGOs - a lot. I have four different, small boxes for minifigure parts (upper bodies, lower bodies, heads, hats/hair etc.), I have a big box for props, such as weapons, mugs, plants etc. and studs and such, I bought a blue LEGO box off LEGO.com full of colorful bricks and I leave all of those there, I have a box for plates, then a box for some strange, rare bricks, a box for the bricks that I use mostly for sets (colors such as dark gray, light dray, black, white, brown etc.), and two bigger boxes for somewhat old bricks and older damaged LEGO sets. I have all my undamaged sets on my shelfs. I also tend to take the minifigures apart for every single new set I get. So...yeah, it's quite a lot. But as you can see, I put different types of LEGOs in different boxes to have it...well...I suppose "nicely" organized and when I'm looking for something I know exactly which box to go in. Most of these boxes are actually shoe boxes, and they work for me just fine. The bigger boxes are these plastic dark blue IKEA boxes that I've had since I was little. So I really sort mostly by brick types. And I might post pictures later but I don't think they're really needed.

Last edited by Tobias (July 25, 2012 (09:42pm))

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Currently going for the "Most Inactive" BiM award.

We've bought a box today so we can organize much better.

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