Biggest Mistakes When Sorting LEGO and How to Fix Them

Which method do you use when sorting LEGO bricks? How long does it take you to find a specific LEGO brick or specialty piece you are looking for? More than a couple of minutes? Do you have to dump your entire collection out onto the floor to search for a missing piece?

If you are answering yes to any of these questions, you are sorting your LEGO bricks incorrectly. Yes, it is possible to do so. I also was sorting them incorrectly for almost 30 years. This guide will examine why most of us are sorting our LEGO bricks incorrectly and what do to about it. We will examine if your collection is sorted wrong (it probably is), and why you should take the time and effort to sort it correctly. Believe it or not, you will save time in the long run.

You are Sorting LEGO Bricks Wrong

First, we need to examine your LEGO collection and determine if it is sorted incorrectly. Take a look at the images below.

Top clues to determine if you can sort your bricks more effectively:

LEGO bricks are not sorted at all and are stored all together in a large container. At least the container is transparent.

LEGO bricks are sorted by color. An attempt was made to sort by brick, but this is still very inefficient.

The worst of them all. What is even stored in here? There are too many boxes and cannot even tell what is inside.

Why You are Sorting LEGO Wrong

If your LEGO collection looks like one of those above, it’s not you’re fault! In all the years of collecting LEGO, no one ever told us the correct way to sort them. The majority of LEGO is purchased in sets, which come in pre-sorted bags in the order of how to build the set. Unless you are planning on displaying the built set, or sort your collection by sets, you need a good way to sort the bricks.

Sorting your LEGO bricks takes some time, planning, and adequate space for storage, so unfortunately, the path of least resistance is to throw all of your loose bricks into a plastic bin and hope for the best. This method makes it extremely inefficient to find the exact brick you are looking for, as most of the time is spent digging through a huge pile of bricks.

Why You Should Take the Time to Sort LEGO Right

Putting the initial investment of time to sort your LEGO bricks correctly is well worth it. There are many benefits of doing so:

• You will only have to sort your collection once. Digging through a large plastic bin or pile of bricks on the floor will be a thing of the past. Think about how many times you saw the same brick over and over, and not the one you were looking for.
• You can find the needed brick in a matter of seconds. This will save a lot of time in the long run.
• Your LEGO brick inventory will be much easier to keep track of. You will know much more efficiently which bricks you have, but also which ones you are missing.
• Find missing bricks from your existing sets. It will be much easier to find those one of a kind pieces to complete a missing set.

LEGO Parts Categories

The BrickLink Catalog currently lists over 16,700 sets, 65,400 parts, and 13,000 minifigures. Therefore, you can see why it is important to have a sorting strategy.

BrickLink further breaks the parts down into the following categories:

The sheer amount of categories can feel overwhelming. Before we start to make sense of it, let’s dive in a bit further. The best way to sort LEGO is by part, which is further broken down by size. The three main categories of parts you will be dealing with will be bricks, plates, and decorated pieces.

LEGO Brick Categories

LEGO “bricks” refer to the standard size bricks, and can be categorized by their size based on the number of “studs” each brick has. Studs are the name for the small bumps on top of each piece.

The major brick categories are the following:

As you can see, the bricks are named in the order of Width by Length by Height. The units of the width and length are in studs, whereas the units off the height are in bricks. For example, a 1 x 2 x 3 brick is 1 stud wide, 2 studs long, and 3 bricks high.

LEGO Plate Categories

LEGO “plates” are like thinner versions of the LEGO bricks. I like to refer to them as “flat” bricks. They can also be categorized by their size based on the number of “studs.”

The major plate categories are the following:

The plates are named in the order of Width by Length. The units of the width and length are in studs. Notice that all of the plates are the same height, which is one-third the height of a brick. Therefore, three plates stacked on top of each other equal the height of one brick.

Decorated Parts

The last main category of bricks to sort are the ones with decorations. You may have noticed that many of the categories have “decorated” in their name. This refers to LEGO bricks and pieces with decorations, patterns, or stickers on them. It is important to sort these pieces separately, as they can be hard to find amongst the solid color bricks. Many of the decorated parts are small 1 x 1 or 1 x 2 tiles.

Different Methods to Sort LEGO

There are many different ways to sort LEGO bricks. A few of them are described at the beginning of this article. Take a look at these methods in more detail below.

Sorting LEGO Bricks All Together

This method guarantees that you will have a very difficult time finding the part that you need. This method is basically taking all of your bricks and putting them in the same large plastic storage bin. Finding the part that you need entails digging around in the large bin, becoming frustrated, and eventually dumping the bricks out onto the floor. There is a better way!

Sorting by Color

This is another method that seems like an improvement, but it is not much better than sorting the bricks all together. This method involves sorting all the bricks of the same color together, without regards to size, shape, or type. This method might work for colors where you don’t have a lot of bricks, but for the larger colors such as black, grey, or white, it doesn’t work very well. It is still difficult to find smaller or decorated pieces.

Sorting by Set

This is a great way to sort LEGO if you are able to accomplish it. The easiest way is to keep the sets separate as you purchase them, and store each set separately. The downside is that this method can take up quite a bit of storage space.

Sorting by Part

In our opinion, this is the best way to sort LEGO. The method involves taking all pieces of the same part and sorting them together, without regards to color. For example, this means taking all of the 1 x 2 bricks of any color and sorting them together. You do not have to use all of the parts categories listed above, but you may find it helpful to use a fair amount of them. The main downside of this method is that it requires a large amount of time to do the sorting, but as described above, it is well worth it.

The Best Way to Sort LEGO

In conclusion, the best method of sorting LEGO is by part! If you are sorting your bricks wrong, now you don’t have to worry! We hope you have found this comprehensive guide to sorting LEGO helpful. Let us know in the comments what method you use.