I, too, have too many patterns in various forms. Not sure this is a better way but is working great for me.
Such as Books. Two shelves. One has books that I have made a pattern from and the other books I have NOT but NEED TO make a pattern from.
Magazines...I tear the pattern out and put them in sleeves that live in 3 ring binders.
I took two days of my life and organzied the binders that I have. Each binder is labeled so I know where to put new stuff as I gather.
One binder is patterns I have already made. My fav patterns end up in there.
Second and third binders are BLOCKS only. Also stuck in there patterns for totes, pincushions, and mug rugs.
Fourth binder has complete quilt patterns either off the internet or torn from quilt magazines.
Fifth binder is for quilting patterns. Rarely look in there.
Sixth is tips, techinqus, shortcuts, formulas, etc.
Seventh is a flying geese book that I tore apart..no idea why and really shouldn't have...lol.
And lastly, is that really a word. have a pattern box that has individual patterns that I bought at stores. They are the patterns displayed on a peg board and in there own individual sleeve.
Sounds like I'm ocd but really am not.
As I mentioned took a long time to set this up but so glad I finally did. Now I can find what I need quickly and know where to browse for inspiration. {{{won't discuss internet mess.}}}}