I tried by theme once, but it didn't work for me. Plus, I will use off-theme kits all the time. I've been surprising myself in the summer challenges with some of my off-theme scrap pages.
I've been through a lot of different programs and tried a bunch of different things and copied a lot of scrappers organizing ways. But, the thing I struggled with was color. I see pages in color. And it is totally impractical in my world to split kits up by color because I would agonize over sticking to Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, Pink, Purple, Black, White, or adding in teal and Grey and all the things. And then one day I stumbled on a program that does color amazing for me with no work on my part.
I use a program called Eagle.cool. And yep, you've probably never heard of it unless you've heard me talk about it at Watch Cheryl Scrap. It's not marketed at scrappers.
So, I like that I can make each kit visually the preview of the kit. I can open a designer's folder and scroll by the previews. And you can make them bigger than this, there's a zoom at the top. I like being able to glance at the kits as I scroll, kinda like my own personal store.
I also like the things I can do to each kit. I like to add photo spot numbers to my templates. Yep, I can adjust how many photos spots are there, but I hate looking for templates that will hold 8 photos and having to browse forever. I'm lenient on this - 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6+, and pocket style. But I just add a tag and it's good.
I also like the spot for URL. I use it for quick linking, especially for CT work. Click the link and I can check that it's still active and link credits.
In the notes field, I sometimes add things like "Thickers" or "Use with blah photos". The notes field searches just like the name.
But like I said. Color is my friend. Color is my BFF. So, I can search for a pink button (as long as the designer labeled it a button). And because of the search feature, I still keep my kits by store -designer. That way I can search the store I'm playing at quickly and easily. And it searches all the kits including retired as long as they are in program.
So, more than you probably wanted to know. But the biggest piece of organizing advice I like to give is: Think about how YOU scrap.
If you are strictly a one kit scrapper, then organize your kits how you would look for them - theme, designer, year, whatever works for you.
If you like to mix and match, then how do you find those mix and match pieces? Is tagging realistic for you? Do you have something that searches your stash well? Would a spreadsheet help or hinder?
Paper scrappers talk about color all the time, and until I realized that's how I scrap, I couldn't find an organizing system that worked for me.