Does anyone have any successful techniques in searching for lego bricks in a pile? We typically tip our box of Lego bricks onto a giant sheet (so that it can be easily picked up) but searching for bricks becomes really tricky and time consuming. You often remind yourself, "you'll find it once you stop looking," but is there more to it than that?

Are there ways to look through the collection more closely? I guess in a sense, are there ways of skimming the collection that help you spot that particular piece? The easiest trap I find is to look for colours because there aren't that many colours... looking for the shape would be better, but it doesn't seem to help.

Likely the best option would be to spread the pieces out so that they are all visible, flat on the ground, but that isn't practical space wise.
Properly sorting is the best solution, although it doesn't seem like that is what you want.



Before starting, it helps to have a quick look through the pile and pick out any interesting bricks you might use. If you don't have your mind set on an exact design, it can be just as much fun to build using parts picked out before hand instead of constantly searching. 

Once you start building I recommend building as much of your creation before searching - keep track of a list of pieces that you need. If you can't immediately find an important piece, then use a temporary one that has the same functionality. Once you're done, go through the pile looking for each piece you need. It will be faster to look for several pieces at the same time as opposed to one.



For the actual sorting, I use the most distinguishing feature of the piece. If it's a unique color, then use that. If it's a strange shape look for that. The method I use for searching in a random pile is to focus on a small area - once I have verified that the piece isn't there I'll separate the area from the pile and move onto the next area. This prevents looking over the same area twice.