I don't sort anything by colour, far too difficult to see what you're looking at. E.g. a black 1x3 plate is much easier to find amongst different coloured plates than it is amongst other black pieces.
I presort by category for cleaning/removing damaged/non-LEGO pieces (I have 10 basic categories) - which makes detail sorting by actual part a lot easier afterward.
When it comes to storage, standard bricks and standard plates are stored together in my large racks and bins, sorted by size then within that by color - everything else is wherever there is room at the time of data entry among bins and racks, I don't keep them categorized. There was no pull/speed advantage to doing that for anything but basic plates and bricks, in my case. :-)
By type and by color. For example I have all of the 1x1 type plates and tiles in one bin with both the soilds and transparent color. All base plates no matter of size in one bin. Separate out the 1x. Bricks from 1x2 in one bin 1x3 and 1x4 in another and all larger sizes in a third
The only problem with the 'random' method is that if something isn't where you think it is, you might as well consider it lost forever (or at least until you stumble across it later).
I used to do as @MountainBricks, but as I started getting more and more colours it became time-consuming to check I had the right pink, grey, etc. so I abandoned it.
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When it comes to storage, standard bricks and standard plates are stored together in my large racks and bins, sorted by size then within that by color - everything else is wherever there is room at the time of data entry among bins and racks, I don't keep them categorized. There was no pull/speed advantage to doing that for anything but basic plates and bricks, in my case. :-)
I used to do as @MountainBricks, but as I started getting more and more colours it became time-consuming to check I had the right pink, grey, etc. so I abandoned it.