Personal inventory groups by category which is nice. Storage chests and night stands and treasure chests do not. All I can do is manually group light and white together in the three chests I have in my house.

This is such a pain. Not to mention how long it takes to drop items when I come back from raiding dungeons. and god forbid I accidentally hit the take all button. 1500 lbs of loot.

For instance, all my Smithing and jewel crafting gear is in my nightstand. When I want to hit the Forge, I just do it take all the items I need and go to town.

Alchemy is going to svck because that and food is all in the same chest. Will take some time to pick out.

Is there a better way?

why yes there is...inventory/UI mods

I did what you do OP, then I went and installed a UI mod that separates items by category (works on chests, barrels, corpses, etc). Why this wasn't done to begin with is somewhat mind-boggling, as the code is already there for the player. :facepalm:

I split ingredients and food for that very reason.

Other than that, I just need a house with more separation and subtlety. I want armor mannequins, and a jewelry chest, etc. I guess I need to do some more quests and get some more houses. I've only got Breezehome so far. I can't wait for a new place where I can just move all of my stuff.

360 alas. Also see voice misrecognition bungled my thread title lol