Tutorials/Organization

Organization is a very important habit to get into in Minecraft. Organization helps with finding things quickly and easily, especially later in the game when you have loads of stuff. This tutorial is leaned more towards people that prefer everything perfect and neat.

The Basics and Storage Rooms
Early on in the game, you find that one double chest will be able to fit most of your items, carrying most of your wood, weapons, and tools. However, to progress further in the game, you will eventually need to make storage rooms with categorized chests to store items. Chests are one of the most important blocks in the game. Here are the basic steps for organizing everything you don't know what to do with into a storage room:

  Make a few double chests.  Build a large room for the chests. If you are tight on space, you can embed some chests into the floor or make chest "shelves".  If you are not tight on space, you may want to place signs next to or above the chests for easy categorization. 

For people that just started playing, here are some common sense tips:

  Put your chests in a ROOM, not in the open.  Place chests with valuables like iron, gold, and diamond, or rare things like saddles, glowstone, and enchanted items, in special, impenetrable places.  Don't make conspicuous rooms for rare items in multiplayer.  Group items together inside chests (don't put things in at random).  If need be, creeper proof your storage facility with obsidian, layers of dirt, etc. Make it as sturdy as possible!  Cats can now jump onto chests and prevent the player from using it. Don't bring your pets in!  If you have a lot of iron and you want to save space, craft iron ingots into iron blocks (9 ingots = 1 block) for more compact storage (same for the other ores).  Different kinds of logs, wooden planks, saplings, wool, leaves, slabs, stairs, sandstone, mushrooms, tools, food, seeds, music discs, and stone bricks will not stack. Keep this in mind when organizing. 

Your storage room is, more or less, symbolizing everything you have accomplished in that world. If you are careless, you'll be back to square one.

Organizing Patterns
Here's where we get to the main organizing techniques. Once you have a fully made storage room, and you're one of the many Minecrafters that have OCD like me, you'll want to be consistent with your organizing across all worlds. One of the main things to do is to come up with a few general categories for every item and block in main categories, such as:


 * Natural (dirt, cacti, flowers, saplings, leaves, vines, leather, eggs, clay, wheat, seeds, etc.)
 * Wood & Tools (logs, planks, sticks, extra tools, misc. wooden blocks, etc.)
 * Mob Drops (gunpowder, bones, rotten flesh, string, spider eyes, slimeballs, etc.)
 * Rocks (cobblestone, stairs, slabs, bricks, stone, etc.)
 * Nether Stuff (Netherrack, soul sand, glowstone, nether bricks, gold nuggets, blaze rods, etc.)
 * Wool (wool of all colors, all dyes, shears, beds, paintings)
 * Mining has 2 sub-categories:
 * Minerals (coal, iron, gold, diamond, redstone, etc.)
 * Tools (pickaxes, shovels, swords, buckets, torches, crafting tables, furnaces, chests, wood, junk blocks for emergencies)
 * Combat (swords, bows, arrows, armour)


 * Rare and Cool Stuff (saddles, ender pearls, cake, cookies, TNT, blocks of iron/gold/diamond/lapis, etc.)
 * Utilities (ladders, minecarts, tracks, boats, bookcases, redstone stuff, pistons, flint & steel, arrows, etc.)
 * Shared (In case you and someone else play the same save and keep each-others stuff separate) Whatever you want but not to much. Ex. Compass, Map, Some strong or rare tools, Armor, Torches, Extra chests, etc.)

But that's just my convenient categories, yours may vary depending on what you do. Also, at the entrance of your house or base, you should have a temporary chest that can be used for anything, so you can go farming while you keep your mining or building setup in an easy-access place.

Now, the setup of how you put them in the chest is a little different. As mentioned above, putting them in randomly is going to do no good for you, so you have to group the same items and blocks together. Create rows of the same thing or section off the chest to specific items. What I usually do with multiple tools that I have used before, with different durabilities, is to sort them like this--->. First, I sort them by tool, sectioning them off in the chest vertically by pickaxe, shovel, hoe, etc. Then by what they're made of; any diamond tools go to the top, while stone or wood goes to the bottom. Since I've had a world since Beta 1.1, I have a ton of extra tools in one chest, and if I plan to go on a long journey, I usually don't waste my time with half-broken tools; I'll just grab a new one. So, because of this, within the spaces of the tools, the new ones are higher up than the used ones (for example, a new iron pickaxe is higher than the used ones, but still not higher than a used gold pickaxe). This system works especially well with diamond tools.

Inventory
Cleaning up your inventory and hot bar can also benefit players by making hot keys for items automatic (so you don't have to look at your hot bar to select what item you want) and to find an acceptable limit for the extra resources you carry.

Hot Bar
The hot bar setup can be one of the most important things to consider depending on the task a player is trying to accomplish. Different setups can be made for different tasks (Mob hunting, Mining, Farming, Building, etc..) however, it would be wise to have a basic setup that can be modified to suit the task.

The following is an example of my normal hot bar setup and the reasons why. The left side is used more for construction and working while the right leans more toward fighting and survival. NOTE: I use a mouse wheel to scroll between items rather than the number keys. Xbox 360 Bumpers work similarly to the mouse wheel.


 * Slot 1 Torches, an obvious necessity to have in minecraft. It may seem odd to have this first but slots 2 and 9 will explain further.
 * Slot 2 Pickaxe, another obvious tool. I typically use a iron or stone pick for this slot as this is the one I use the most and it is best not to waste diamonds. This is best in this slot because it is right next to the torches so they can be easily accessed while mining.
 * Slot 3 Special Tool, any other tool (hoe, axe, shovel, or higher quality pickaxe) that may need to be used during play. Possibly enchanted so as to be used in certain scenarios.
 * Slot 4 Cobblestone, common and durable building material. Useful for tools or quick structures/walls. 1/2 to 3/4 a stack is best so that any extra cobble picked up doesn't take up another inventory space.
 * Slot 5 Dirt, similar to the cobble both abundant and easy to take down, and an excellent filler material for those unsightly creeper craters. 1/2 to 3/4 stack.
 * Slot 6 Bucket of water, because you never know when you gonna catch on fire. Location is key because no matter what you have selected it is about the same distance to scroll to the water.
 * Slot 7 Food/Potion of Health, for restoring hunger and health. Potion is better when fighting mobs.
 * Slot 8 Bow/Fishing rod, for fighting. Use the rod to bring enemies into the fight when arrow supply is low.
 * Slot 9 Sword, for fighting. Location is good because in reality it is only one box away from torches (for exploring dangerous areas) and only two from the pickaxe (for when mining in the dark).

Tips and Tricks
 Put blocks underneath your chest and put that specific block in the chest (dirt, cobblestone, iron,etc.). For minerals make a block of iron, gold, or diamond. <li> In snapshot 12w34a, you can use item frames to label your storage room.