How do you organize all your cards?

[migunner]

I need some advice on how to organize and catalog my cards. I'm completely overwhelmed with this task. I have about 30-35k sports cards, mainly basketball that were never really put into any kind of order. I got the cards when I was a kid and would just take the players I liked or the cards that I liked and put them in binders and take the others ones and put them in card boxes. After a few weeks I finally got the cards separated into which sport they are, but I haven't been able to do much more then that.

Is there anyway to make a catalog of which cards I have, without taking 6 months off work and locking myself in the basement? Maybe someplace I can print off checklists for specific years and brands? Any tips or Ideas would be great. Also, what about buying new cards, how do most of you go about organizing those?

[s13driver]

Well I'm a set collector so it might be different for me. But here's my criteria for organizing my basketball cards:

1. Year (1998-99, 2006-07, 2009-10 etc.)
2. Brand (Fleer, Topps, Upper Deck etc.)
3. Set number

I also put any inserts that belong with those sets after the base cards. I have a seperate box where I put all my GU, Autos or other high end cards all in penny sleeves and top loaders.