Donuel, I agree with mg's post, good summary of what needs to be done. When you are first tackling decluttering particularly, I do think it's more productive to go through the house 'fishing out' items that need to go elsewhere, whether that be to give to a friend, relative, or charity, check what it might be worth on Ebay, or simply bag up for trash or recycling. As you go, put the items which will leave the house into a staging area, such as the front hall or in the car, so you're not tempted to re-store anything.

Other people ascribe to the 'process one spot completely' approach, where you take a closet or whatever and sort everything into what's to be done with it; maybe 5 boxes/piles such as trash, sell, repair, give away, and 'put somewhere else in the house'. To me this is tough because you create a big mess until you can get it all dealt with, but some people like it because then that spot is 'done'. But if you're a busy person prone to clutter, you can just wind up halfway done, with messy piles or reboxed stuff that is still in the way.

So you might want to try both approaches and see which one suits you.