I have been considering swapping my organization method for cards to Chaos sorting. For those unfamiliar, instead of sorting the cards into your collection, you would place them in the first spot that you have room for them and mark them in whatever digital inventory system you are using as being located in wherever you put them. Then when you need the card you would look up where it is and go get it.

Before doing this I really wanted to talk it out and see if im messing something up. I dont think it has to be a permanent issue, if I dont like it I can just begin to resort what I have like im already doing. but anyway:

Pros
- Intake Time is shortened. Scan, find a place, put into my deckbox inventory, and mark their location with a tag.
- When sorting cards I no longer have to wonder if I already have a box these cards need to be sorted into or if they need a new box or if I should just put them in the "Misc" box i have...decision is the same every time.
- Small fun thing: Cards will likely be inserted next to cards acquired in a similar way. So draft pools will stick together a little longer
- Not permanent or locking...can always look at each "Bin" or location and decide to merge it with another one to become more efficient. But it stops my log jam on intake

Cons
- Recall is delayed.
- - However, how delayed is it? I already have to go to multiple boxes. I mainly build commander decks so its not like im frequently grabbing a bunch of the same card over and over again, so I am not confident this is actually a slow down
- Need a computer and internet connection to interact with my collection
- Potentially a problem if I pull from the wrong box or make a mistake...card gets lost forever. So the book keeping gets moved to deck building (which I do do less of than acquisition to be fair)

Anyway, wanted to discuss. Curious as to your thoughts. Trying to poke holes. Has anyone done this with Deckbox?

Would you sort them alphabetically or something similar within each of these 'chaos' locations? I kind of like the idea.

sebi wrote:
Would you sort them alphabetically or something similar within each of these 'chaos' locations? I kind of like the idea.

Yes and no...priority is getting them in the system first. But ideally yes you would have every location sorted alphabetically so it would almost work like USPS where the Zip Code + 4 Number Code essentially bring you to an exact location as you read it.

Something I wanted to add is that each location doesn’t have to be a physical box, there can be any number of “bins” inside each of my 800 card long boxes. Just put in a divider and a label on the divider (or if you aren’t the label type just count the numbers from front to back). But I think the labels will let me name the groupings something meaningful and let me move one “bin” without having to rename the other ones.