Doc,
You are not alone. I used to "just wing it" when I was new to the cooking game. Each time I made certain dishes I would get close, but it always seemed to be missing something. Then I started writing down recipes I liked, or copied them from magazines. I ended up with a nightmare of paper. My attempts to organize the collection of recipes led to notebook after notebook of semi-organized recipes. One day the family CEO said, "This is not working! The collection gets bigger, and you only cook a couple of the recipes." I admitted I had a "recipe addiction". I bought a computer program to help me unclutter the mess. I ended up shredding a lot of paper. Actually, my wife shredded a lot of paper. She likes doing this. Kind of a cathartic for her, I guess. At any rate, the piles of file folders and stacks of notebooks gradually got smaller. These were the recipes I would like to cook, Then I changed computers and the old recipe software was not available for my new one, a MAC. Since the stacks of folders and notebooks was much smaller, and re-organized into topical areas, I found a new software that made it easier for me to make a "new and improved recipe book". I still have way too many recipe books, but, with my wife's help, we pared down the actual books as well. Almost everyone I added to the pile were "gifts" to us from friends over the years. Church collections, mostly. Since I never actually cooked from them, getting rid of them and creating space on the shelves was easy.
Well, today I still have a stack of folders to work on. The notebooks have been reduced to folders. My biggest folder include a lot of charcuterie related recipes. I have been adding some really good looking recipes from FB. In the computer they don't clutter up my office space. Having the internet makes it easy to find recipes and look them over before cooking. I will print and try one before adding it to my new collection. If I like the results, I keep it. Otherwise, my wife gets to shred it.
I am hoping that my organized recipe collection will allow me to not let any good recipes get away.
Art