Strategies for getting more organized?

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I have a fairly small living space in my parents' place after I used to live on my own. This is from economy reasons and now to save money while going to college to start over. I have had some success recently in weeding out clutter and I want to put more time into it after this college quarter ends and I go on break.

Part of what I worked with is this strong fixation I have on recycling. Fortunately, the city I commute to for college has a recycling center so I've lined up categories of things to recycle and also dropped off old electronics and old CDs at Best Buy for recycling. I have also sold a big chunk of my book collection which was mostly old paperbacks I wasn't that attached to.

Another idea that appeals to me that I haven't fully tried is to yank everything out of this room and gradually move back into the room but being very selective of what stays or goes. I've been watching this show Restaurant: Impossible with John Irvine and that is a major part of what he does. He sweeps out all the clutter and creates a blank slate to build on. I feel like I'm doing that halfway.

I had some degrees of success doing this with sections of the room but I would like to do that whole room sometime.

Anyway this was just a random thought on my mind and wondered what experiences others have had in pitching stuff out.

When I do any serious cleaning, I will empty an entire room (as you have mentioned) and organize items into bins according to when they were last used and the likelihood they'd be used again within the next year. If an item hasn't been used in over a year (aside from some home basics and tools), it gets pitched/donated/sold/given away to someone who wants it. Another effective way to clear clutter is getting rid of an item for each new item you acquire. I have occasionally gotten rid of items totaling the size of large items I acquire, so as to not run out of storage space.