2018-02-23

Organize your Lego pieces before you play

I like to play Lego, especially the Lego Technic series. If you are like me, you will enjoy the part where you build part from each pieces, but we can get frustrated when we could not find the pieces you need. Have you ever try to find a piece for 15 minutes, only to find that it is just right in front of you? I did.

Some may say that organizing the Lego pieces is part of the playing experience, and this is especially true for large Lego set. As with many other aspect of our life, preparation is what determines our success or failure. When playing Lego, preparation or lack of thereof could be what makes the experience fun or stressful.

Plastic organizer to keep the Lego pieces.

How you need to prepare the Lego will depends on many factors:

• The available work space (or play space if you prefer) you have. For example, do you have a dedicated big table to build your Lego, or do you have medium size table that shared with someone else? Dining table perhaps?
• Available space for storage.
• Storage type that you have available to you.
• Size of your Lego set (or your Lego collection if you are not building the bundled set).

I do not have a big dedicated space to play Lego, and I am using the same space for reading, working, playing. Since I do not have dedicated space for playing my Lego, I am using plastic organizer box.

This is the way I organize the Lego pieces that works for me:

For medium to big size pieces

Some straight Lego Technic set can be grouped together.

I group them based on the similarities of the shapes. For example in Lego Technic, I group the set in the picture below together, regardless of the color.

Some non-straight Lego Technic pieces can be stored together.

The gears can be in the same container.

Depending on the size of the Lego set, when the Lego set are big,

I may put the yellow pieces like in the picture below (far left) on different container.

For small Lego pieces

Don’t mix these 2 together!

The small Lego pieces occupy smaller space, but could be challenging to find when mixed with other pieces. Depending on the sets, some types are much more than the others. For this type, I usually put them in dedicated container. For other smaller pieces that are in smaller quantity, I could mix them together, but be careful not to mix pieces with different shape but with the same color. For me, it is difficult to find them if they mixed together.

Don’t Open all the plastic bag at once

If you buy a new Lego set, the pieces are stored in numbered bag. It may be a good idea to open the smallest number bag first, and open the next numbered bag as you progress. However, this only applies the first time you follow the default set.

Most importantly, you need to understand how you work. You could be doing what everyone else told you not to do, but if that is what makes you more effective and enjoying the process at the same time, please do it. For example, I recommend not combining different type of Lego pieces with same color; but if that is what works for you, there is no reason that you do it differently.