What I wish I had done years ago is store them in sets
by set. Pull out Swarm of the Marro Master Set carton, and you know what you have. And so on.
The advantage of that system is that you will be building maps from designs you download from this wonderful site (thank you for the kind words), and they will tell you what sets they use: "Sacrifice (SotM x2, TJ x2)." Or something like that. Then, when you're building Sacrifice, you know you need 2 SotM sets and 2 TJ sets.
What that will mean for you at home is that you won't be in the situation I am, which is that when you want to build one fairly simple map, you have to haul out 50 pounds worth of terrain. The water is one place; the stone singles and doubles are in another; the big pieces are in one giant tub and the columns are in another giant tub, with the ruins. For instance. So I basically have to turn my basement upside down to build one or two maps, when if I had them organized by set, then I could take out what I need, build it, and leave the basement looking nice while I'm out of the house.
You can tell yourself that you have a small collection (which you might or might not), but the problem with separating it all out is that it becomes, over time, impossible to imagine breaking it all back down to its component sets.
My
.