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 collected a lot of materials. It takes a long time to find what you need because it is cluttered up in chests. This tutorial is leaned more towards people that prefer to store items in specific categories.

The Basics and the Slightly-Less-Basics
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 into a good sense of order.

  Make at the very least 10 or 12 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". Note that it is possible to stack chests directly on top of one another.  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 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 most of 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.  Chests will not open with a block on top. You can place upside down stairs or half slabs to change this.  Label your chests! It will help you later in the game when you have much more items. </ul>

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

Organization Categories
Once you have completed your storage room, attic, cellar, or whatever you want to call it, you'll want to be consistent with your organizing across all the single-player and multi-player worlds that you play on. 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: Plants, weeds, and stuff you'd find in the natural world.  (Ex. Saplings, Cacti, Tall Grass, Leaves, etc.)
 * Wood: Anything having to do with wood.  (Ex. Logs, planks, sticks, Fences, Boats, Signs, etc.)
 * Mob Drops: Anything a mob might have dropped that's not food or potion ingredient.  (Ex. Rotten Flesh, Eggs, Ender Pearls, Spider Eyes, Feathers, etc.)
 * Foodstuffs: Any and all food that's not currently on your player.  (Ex. Porkchop, Beef, Bread, Chicken, the raw counterparts, Carrots, and any other delicious food-like items too.)
 * Stone: This means all the blocks and items that you have that are made of stone, with stone, or just in general have something to do with stone.
 * Nether Stuff: All blocks and items pertaining to the Nether, unless used for potions, in which those items would be in the alchemy room.  (Ex. Netherrack, Nether Brick, Nether Brick Stairs and Slabs, Golden Nuggets, etc.)
 * Wool: There's many different colors of wool, so it gets its own chest.  (Ex. Dyes, Shears, Wool.)
 * Combat Gear: Here is where all your weapons; TNT, armor, and, flint and steel go. 'Nuff said.
 * Ores/Minerals: Anything mined out of the Earth.  (Ex. Iron Ingots, Gold Ingots, Diamonds, etc.)
 * Extra Tools: All extra tools that you have but do not need at the moment.
 * Mining Gear: Gear and tools that you need when going down into you favorite mineshaft, torches, pickaxes, buckets, really, anything that you would take with you whilst mining.
 * Utilities/Junk: Anything else that do not fit any other categories and mechanical things.  (Ex. Redstone Torches, Repeaters, Enchanted Books, etc.)
 * Extra Flint/Coal: Placed next to your furnaces, this chest will hold all of your extra flint and coal.
 * Shared Stash: You only need this chest if you are doing this on a multiplayer server where you are bunking with friends, that way, they will know if it is okay to borrow some dirt, or if all of your stuff has an invisible "HANDS OFF!" sign on it.
 * Brewing No, we are not going to the bar, I'm talking about potions! This, like the name suggests, means you put all you potions in here, along with potion ingredients, spare cauldrons, brewing stands, anything that has to do with the rich and varied world of potions.

Your own categories may vary - organize them in a way that is convenient for you.

At the entrance of your house or base, you may want to 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 easily accessible place.

Organizing the items that are already in the chest
Note: Everything below this line is for people that want to organize EVERYTHING, their hotbar keys, their inventory, even the inside of their chests. If you are an average person, then just reading the paragraphs above this will be enough to keep you happy. If not, read on...

The setup of how you put items in a specific chest is important too. Putting them in randomly is going to make everything all jumbled up, so you should group the same items and blocks together. Create rows of the same thing or section off the chest to specific items. One possible way to do this with multiple tools that have been used before, with differing durabilities, is to sort them like this: First, 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. Within the spaces of the tools, the new ones would be higher up than the used ones (for example, a new iron pickaxe would be higher than the used ones, but still not higher than a used gold pickaxe). How your sort your items in the chests can save your life in the future.

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. Inventory management is crucial if you want to be an efficient player.

Method 1
I organize my hotbar as follows:


 * 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 an 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 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 5 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 6 Bucket of water, because you never know when you gonna catch on fire.
 * 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).

And now for the inventory.


 * Red: Utilities. Specifically the things you see there.
 * Orange: Potions, both defense and offense.  As shown here, it is a smart idea to sort them by splash/drink and defensive/offensive effects.
 * Yellow: I use this area for my crafting table, Furnace, and extra armor.
 * Green: Torches.
 * Blue: My tools.
 * Purple: This area is used for food storage.
 * Teal: I use these four squares for weapons.

Of course, you can organize you inventory as you like, but this is what I suggest. I have found that using this system helps you instantly be able to know where everything is, so in crucial moments, you have faster reflexes. Because of this, it's a good idea to use the mouse wheel instead of the number keys to switch items on my hotbar; it's a lot faster and can preserve your keyboard. On the XBox 360, the bumpers work a lot like the mouse wheel.

'''Note: The hotbar management system and chest category systems are not my original; whoever made them I give full credit to. All I did was tweak them and make them a little easier to understand. :)'''

Method 2
Note: This is just for hotbar organization; use whatever method you like for inventory.


 * Slot 1: Your handy-dandy pickaxe. The 1 key on the keyboard is, for most people, the easiest number to reach.
 * Slot 2: A shovel of any kind, can also use a sword instead.
 * Slot 3: A sword of any kind, can swap for a shovel.
 * Slot 4: An axe, because you never know when you'll have the urge to destroy that forest.
 * Slot 5: A misc. tool, preferably a hoe or bow.
 * Slot 6: Any block will work, usually dirt or cobble.
 * Slot 7: A food source, potion spot, or water.
 * Slot 8: Torches! You should always have those in your hotbar.
 * Slot 9: Your main building material. Whether it be sandstone or stone bricks, it goes here.

Creative
When playing on Creative (or building in Survival), a good hotbar is required to decrease going to the Creative Inventory.


 * Slot 1 Any block, (the ones you use most, perhaps cobblestone, iron or something else).
 * Slot 2 Another block, but one you use less.
 * Slot 3 Once again a block, but not one you use a lot.
 * Slot 4 Redstone, especially if you are building a house.
 * Slot 5 A redstone item, usually levers or pressure plates to go with redstone.
 * Slot 6 Some light source. You still need to use them.
 * Slot 7 Signposts, paintings or any other type of decoration.
 * Slot 8 Leave empty for other stuff.
 * Slot 9 Something building-specific. If you are building a house, this may be doors or glass panes. If it is a huge tower, it may be ladders or buckets of water.

Tips and Tricks
<li> 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. <li> In 1.5 and above, you can place trapped chests and normal chests next to each other to save space. <li> For better and more compact chest organization (for chest labeling), hold down the Sneak button (Left Shift by default) and, while holding a sign or item frame, place the sign or item frame on the chest. When placing an item frame on a chest, look at the item frame and place the item or block in the frame. This trick is handy for better organization and prevention of getting confused of what goes where.