Finding
The first step in clearing out your junk is to find all of your belongings. When you are clearing your junk you will want to clear all of your junk at once. This will mean that you will need to find everywhere that you may have belongings stored. When doing this you will want to be as thorough as possible, going through anything that may contain items you no longer need. This will include looking in cupboards, drawers, cabinets and may even include going through containers such as suitcases. The last thing that you want is to go through the process of clearing all of your junk only to find that you had more that you could have gotten rid of later on.
Identify
The second step in clearing out your junk is to identify what you need and what you don't. This will be much harder for some people than it is for others. If you are the kind of person that tends to hoard things and keep them just in case, you will want to be particularly ruthless in what you decide not to keep. You will need to look at everything and think about how useful it is to you. As much as you may think that you are going to need something at some point, if you have not used it in years, that probably isn't the case. Many people hold onto niche appliances and the like telling themselves that they are going to start using them when in reality they are just going to continue taking up space.
Donate/sell
The third step is to decide on what items, of those that you are clearing, will still be useful to someone else. These items you will want to donate or sell. You will want to make sure that you sell or donate anything that you can before you start throwing things out. You don't want to throw out something only to realise later that you could have sold or donated it. Whether you decide to sell something or to donate it is up to you, both have advantages and disadvantages. With selling things, you will obviously get money out of it which is the biggest upside. The downside is that you will have to organise the sale. This means not only finding a seller, but also organising the hand over of the items. Donating items is far less organisational work and you get to help people out in the process. The obvious disadvantage of this is that you won't get any money.
Discard
The last step in the process is to discard the rest of the junk. Although this seems easy, its not always as simple as just throwing everything in the bin. Everything will need to be disposed of properly. If something is recyclable you will want to make sure that you recycle it. Certain items may need to be disposed of in a specific way. For example, electronic waste such as old phones or computers will need to be taken to a place that deals specifically with electronic waste. On top of this, any sensitive data, be that digital or hard copy, will need to be shredded or destroyed.
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