As my collection of small components grows, it is becoming… messy. And it is not even large yet, I have only done a handful of hobby projects.

Recently I had the realization that I can make use of Chinese ‘Sample Books’ to keep the smaller reel components well organized. I have ordered 0402, 0603, the 0805, and two empty books to use these as the basis of my organization:

What made me originally select the strategy of keeping the original packaging that the components came and stuffing them into project-specific bags is the labeling. My first attempt at organization was to to use small storage boxes for sorting, but when I tried to keep single labeled components per box I ran out of boxes very quickly… When I mix multiple components in a box (like different photodiodes, for example), then it is difficult to label them separately without using too much space.

I am curious about what methods others use for keeping a component library organized and easy to search.