I’ve been working on a detailed digital illustration in Illustrator, and as the project progressed, my Layers panel became a labyrinth of groups, sublayers, and hidden elements. Honestly, it’s starting to slow me down a lot. Every time I want to isolate a part of my drawing or lock out some unnecessary areas, I feel like I’m wasting way too much time scrolling through the panel or accidentally selecting the wrong objects.

Does anyone have tips or best practices for organizing layers in Illustrator that help keep the file responsive? I know you can color-code layers and use layer comps to some extent, but I wonder if there’s a more streamlined method to quickly toggle visibility or lock certain groups without constantly digging through dozens of nested layers. Also, are there any Illustrator features that can help reduce the performance drag caused by too many complex paths or effects on these layers? Any advice would be much appreciated!