How Do YOU Organize Your Inventory?

[Error403Forbidden]

Hello everyone! 

I'm back again with another ask from the SL community. I have been trying for YEARS to organize my inventory. But my problem is the amount of different things I own. Some issues I come into a problem with is the following...

• I own massive amounts of decor.
• I own massive amounts of landscaping things.
• I own a ton of clothing, accessories, etc.
• I own a lot of different bodies and thus a ton of different clothing for EACH body.

My inventory is always getting new things of all different types, it's insane. I've tried organizing from Themes, to Colours, to bodies, to WHATEVER, but I always end up not liking how the organization goes and I still struggle to find stuff, or know what I have. Here is an example of something I have started, but now I hate it because I still feel lost. Or maybe just the fact I have so much stuff is the REAL crippling blow to my desire to organize LOL LORD SEND HELP!

I want your ideas and examples, PLEASE! So I can maybe collab all your ideas into something I can do LOL

 

[Coffee Pancake]

For clothing CTS Wardrobe.

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9 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

For clothing CTS Wardrobe.

WOAH! I looked it up! That looks insanely awesome!

I see there is more then one, which do you use?

[Persephone Emerald]

First consider how you actually use your inventory. If you go to RP sims, organize some clothing for different kinds of sims. If you go to clubs, have a folder for club ware. If you know you wear different clothing in the summer vs. winter, organize by seasons.

Do your different bodies share the same outfits? Then don't have different folders for each body. Rather use a notation in your folder titles so you can sort for those bodies. This keeps duplicate items to a minimum. For instance F*, M*, L*, Re*, GxC* could mean Freya, Maitreya, Legacy, Reborn and GenX Curvy. Do you really need to have all those bodies active though? If there are some you no longer use, delete their outfits in the folders, but keep the packages and the notation in the folder titles, so you can pull out those sizes later if you really want them.

Second, you have too many sub-folders. Think of titles that would let you combine some of them. For instance: Bedroom Furniture, Kitchen Furniture, Livingroom Furniture, Outdoor Furniture. This lets you keep sets together and keeps you from looking through all your chairs when you know you either want a kitchen chair, a comfy chair, or a deck chair. It's essential to have a balance between not enough sub-folders vs. too many sub-folders. 

Another example would be "Pictures and Art", which would include all kinds of wall art, statues and any art that doesn't quite fit in those categories. 

[Rolig Loon]

Organize?  I gave up on that years ago. I create folders that seem logical at the moment and I stuff things in them.  Every once in a while -- mostly when I have wondered "Where did I put that thing?"  -- I spend an afternoon just tossing things that don't look familiar.  I operate on the theory that if I can't remember what something is (or why in heaven's name I got it)  I probably won't miss it.  I've been following that philosophy for years now, and my inventory has never climbed over about 50,000 items. And I can usually find the important stuff.

I will admit, though, that there are two classes of objects that defy my Clean Slate approach.  I do a fair amount of scripting and I rarely get rid of one that I have spent more than an hour or two writing. Same with mesh objects I have created.  Most of those scripts and mesh files are stored off line, of course, not in my inventory, but the ones that do end up in inventory tend to stay there forever.  I have a hard time killing off my own children.  

Edited June 26, 2023 by Rolig Loon
typos. as always.

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11 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

First consider how you actually use your inventory. If you go to RP sims, organize some clothing for different kinds of sims. If you go to clubs, have a folder for club ware. If you know you wear different clothing in the summer vs. winter, organize by seasons.

Do your different bodies share the same outfits? Then don't have different folders for each body. Rather use a notation in your folder titles so you can sort for those bodies. This keeps duplicate items to a minimum. For instance F*, M*, L*, Re*, GxC* could mean Freya, Maitreya, Legacy, Reborn and GenX Curvy. Do you really need to have all those bodies active though? If there are some you no longer use, delete their outfits in the folders, but keep the packages and the notation in the folder titles, so you can pull out those sizes later if you really want them.

Second, you have too many sub-folders. Think of titles that would let you combine some of them. For instance: Bedroom Furniture, Kitchen Furniture, Livingroom Furniture, Outdoor Furniture. This lets you keep sets together and keeps you from looking through all your chairs when you know you either want a kitchen chair, a comfy chair, or a deck chair. It's essential to have a balance between not enough sub-folders vs. too many sub-folders. 

Another example would be "Pictures and Art", which would include all kinds of wall art, statues and any art that doesn't quite fit in those categories. 

YEAH ;A; I think I try to organize ***** to hard into like hyper specific folders lol It's driving me nuts ha ha!

I'll try to condense the Titles / Themes. I thought I was getting somewhere when I decided to make "Halloween" and "Christmas" 

8 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Organize?  I gave up on that years ago. I create folders that seem logical at the moment and I stuff things in them.  Every once in a while -- mostly when I have wondered "Where did I put that thing?"  -- I spend an afternoon just tossing things that don't look familiar.  I operate on the theory that if I can't remember what something is (or why in heaven's name I got it)  I probably won't miss it.  I've been following that philosophy for years now, and my inventory has never climbed over about 50,000 items. And I can usually find the important stuff.

I will admit, though, that there are two classes of objects that defy my Clean Slate approach.  I do a fair amount of scripting and I rarely get rid of one that I have spent more than an hour or two writing. Same with mesh objects I have created.  Most of those scripts and mesh files are stored off line, of course, not in my inventory, but the ones that do end up in inventory tend to stay there forever.  I have a hard time killing off my own children.  

Oh gosh, I use to do that and then I realized I deleted a lot of stuff I did want years later ;-; Why am I so picky!

But thank you for your feed back! Every bit counts and helps me figure things out ha ha!

[Persephone Emerald]

1 minute ago, Error403Forbidden said:

YEAH ;A; I think I try to organize ***** to hard into like hyper specific folders lol It's driving me nuts ha ha!

[snip]

Oh gosh, I use to do that and then I realized I deleted a lot of stuff I did want years later ;-; Why am I so picky!

Are you a Virgo too? Not many people organize their inventory into so many rational sub-folders. I do this too, but still have a bunch of unsorted or partially sorted stuff in folders from hunts, Shop & Hop events, "Clothes to Sort!" & etc.

[Error403Forbidden]

1 minute ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Are you a Virgo too? Not many people organize their inventory into so many rational sub-folders. I do this too, but still have a bunch of unsorted or partially sorted stuff in folders from hunts, Shop & Hop events, "Clothes to Sort!" & etc.

OMG YES I AM a Virgo LOL 🤣

 

[Fauve Aeon]

I’m trying to nest things more, for instance decor, home decor, ‘wall decor’ instead of several top-level folders with wall hangings, paintings, pictures wall art up at a higher level. I’ve done ‘tabletop’ for anything that usually sits on a table, and yep, ‘dining/tabletop’ under that, snd so is ‘countertop’. I’m trying to un-flatten my inventory and make it deeper. So far it’s making sense. I’m also spending time just reducing things like old lm, notecards and demos - but I do each activity separately, and kind of swap off. Occasionally a few friends and I sort together and hilarity ensues in a bizarre show and tell scenario. 
 

I have the Wardrobe, and I used it a bit, it seemed like a good idea once set up  - but I’m mostly back in the Official viewer these days, so it’s not useful there. 

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7 minutes ago, Fauve Aeon said:

I’m trying to nest things more, for instance decor, home decor, ‘wall decor’ instead of several top-level folders with wall hangings, paintings, pictures wall art up at a higher level. I’ve done ‘tabletop’ for anything that usually sits on a table, and yep, ‘dining/tabletop’ under that, snd so is ‘countertop’. I’m trying to un-flatten my inventory and make it deeper. So far it’s making sense. I’m also spending time just reducing things like old lm, notecards and demos - but I do each activity separately, and kind of swap off. Occasionally a few friends and I sort together and hilarity ensues in a bizarre show and tell scenario. 
 

I have the Wardrobe, and I used it a bit, it seemed like a good idea once set up  - but I’m mostly back in the Official viewer these days, so it’s not useful there. 

I like that idea! I think getting the décor settled in one job and the clothing is a way other one ha ha! Especially with so many bodies and mods. I love to organize with people as well, it's a lot of fun, and I find it easier to concentrate when doing something like inventory organization, with other people. 😄

I took a look at that CTS Wardrobe in someone YouTube video and it seems a but much to me? I don't minding spending 10 L to save a pic for my Wardrobe in the SL Outfits sections, so it seems like a lot of work from what the video showed? And it's not entirely ON SL so that was a big turn off from using that. 🫠

[Fauve Aeon]

I have a basic dummy setup of folders for my clothing by company because I have a tendency to sweep a half off sale but I rarely buy fat packs and I like to layer. So for example this week it was ‘Rowne > separates  ‘tops’, ‘bottoms’. Then under tops ‘lower’ & ‘upper’ to give myself the quick reference to how they will layer. All the bras, bikini tops, bralettes, tanks & corsets in ‘lower’. Everything blouse, wrap, jacket, coat, sweater, shrug, in ‘upper’. I’ve done this for several years with their clothes, and Ison too. It makes wearing their particular style of clothes much more fun and creative. 

[Error403Forbidden]

1 hour ago, Fauve Aeon said:

I have a basic dummy setup of folders for my clothing by company because I have a tendency to sweep a half off sale but I rarely buy fat packs and I like to layer. So for example this week it was ‘Rowne > separates  ‘tops’, ‘bottoms’. Then under tops ‘lower’ & ‘upper’ to give myself the quick reference to how they will layer. All the bras, bikini tops, bralettes, tanks & corsets in ‘lower’. Everything blouse, wrap, jacket, coat, sweater, shrug, in ‘upper’. I’ve done this for several years with their clothes, and Ison too. It makes wearing their particular style of clothes much more fun and creative. 

I see! I once had my stuff organized via brand as well. I might go back to it, maybe? I think I've been to dead focused on trying to organize all parts of my inventory in a similar fashion.

[Spiffy Voxel]

I put stuff inside the system folders where it makes sense to do so, then have protected folders below those (so I can't move or delete them by accident) for everything else according to what type of thing it is. It's pretty loose at the moment, but I've started to group similar things by creator/store where I have a lot by the same maker.

One major plus of using protected folders is that unsorted stuff sticks out and is easier to round up and deal with.