How to organise your board game collection (and keep it that way)

A collection rarely overflows all at once. It overflows one game at a time: a sale, a gift, a shop impulse. Then one day the shelf is full, boxes are stacked at odd angles, and nobody knows whether Catan is on the shelf or at a friend's place. Here is a three-step method to restore order, and more importantly to make it last.

Why tidying never sticks

Most storage systems fail for the same reason: they solve for space, not for use. You sort by box size because that is what fits best, then spend ten minutes hunting for the party game you wanted. Three game nights later, everything is back in the wrong place.

Lasting organisation answers two questions: where is this game? and do we still play it? The first is a shelving problem, the second an inventory problem.

Step 1: sort before you shelve

Take everything out, or at least one shelf at a time. For each box, ask three questions:

• Have we played it in the last twelve months?
• Do I really want to play it again, with real people, in real conditions? (A five-player, three-hour game with a group that meets once a month will rarely hit the table.)
• Is it complete? A box with missing pieces rarely gets played.

You end up with three piles: games that get played, games you want to get played, and games that can go. For the ones you keep “just in case”, we wrote a whole article on the games gathering dust on your shelf.

Step 2: shelve by use, not by size

Split your shelves into zones that match how you actually play:

• Within reach (eye level): short and party games, the ones you grab when someone says “quick game?”.
• Middle: your standard game-night titles, 45 minutes to 90 minutes.
• Top: heavy strategy games you plan ahead for.
• Bottom: kids' games, at their height, and the heaviest boxes.

If you often play with two, a small “duo” zone saves time. The exact split matters less than matching your real game nights.

Vertical or flat?

Storing boxes upright, like books, shows every spine and lets you pull out a game without toppling a stack. Many collectors do it, on one condition: the inside has to hold. Zip bags per component type, or an insert, keep pieces from mixing when the box tips over. Keep very heavy or fragile boxes flat.

Small boxes

Card games and small boxes disappear between the big ones. A dedicated crate or tub, used like a drawer, keeps them together and visible.

Step 3: keep an up-to-date inventory

This is the step everyone skips, and the one that makes the other two last. A useful inventory answers four questions:

1. What do I own? So you never buy the same game twice (it happens more than you think, especially with expansions).
2. What have I lent, and to whom? The forgotten loan is the number one cause of “lost” games.
3. When did I last play it? The most honest signal of whether a game deserves its spot.
4. What do I want to buy? A wishlist curbs impulse purchases.

There are several tools. A spreadsheet works if you like columns. BoardGameGeek lists almost every published game. MYLUDO is the go-to French site for cataloguing a collection. And an app on your phone has one decisive advantage: it is there while you play, so the last-played date updates itself.

Keeping it tidy: the seasonal ritual

Once a season, take twenty minutes:

• put games that drifted back into their zone;
• chase loans that have been out for more than three months;
• look at games with no play in a year and decide: we play it this month, or it goes.

That is all. A collection does not need to be perfect; you just need to know what is in it.

Where MeepleThèque fits

This is exactly the problem we set out to solve. In MeepleThèque, every game shows when it was last played, loans show who has it and since when, and games that never left the box float up on the home screen. If your collection already lives on MYLUDO, it imports in one go.