I am spending much more time than I would like sifting through my inventory trying to find things to drop when I become over-encumbered. It is also a hassle when I am trying to sell things but shopkeepers always run out of gold. I hate wasting my time with these things when I could be enjoying playing the game. Inventory management is one of my least favorite parts of Skyrim and I was wondering if anybody has tips to make it easier/ less of a hassle.

I have a container for different things at home.

I have a container where I put the stuff I'm going to sell soon.
I have a container for food
I have a container for weapons
I have a container for armor
I have a container for ingredients
I have a container for misc items
I have a container for soul gems

once you set up your system, you know where you need to go to find your stuff.

Are you on PC or Xbox?

When I get lots of stuff to sell, I go into clean-up and selling mode for a while until I get rid of the stuff.

I take merchant perk quite early in the game, it really helps simplify selling loot.

I'm on ps3 so no mods if thats what you were going to suggest

but the organized chests is a good idea, thank you

No mods huh? Then I would try to optimize...get your speech up to 50 as quickly as possible, so you can take the perk that allows you to sell any type of item to any vendor. Them make your primary means of support selling potions, gems or jewelery(if you smith).

Then you only need to pick up and carry loot that's actually useful to you.

All my enchanted gear is named with single quote marks around the name. All my crafting gear that has Fortify Alchemy and/or Fortify Smithing on it is all called 'Alchemy' Blades Gauntlets, 'Alchemy' Silver Ring, etc. Which puts the entire set all at the top of the menu. Most of my other enchanted gear falls into a type of alphabetical order as well, but the quote marks mean they will always be at the top of their menu. I tend to store my stuff as well, like abacus707, and only carry around less than 100 weight. If you tend to carry a lot of loot out of places, try making or buying some powerful Fortify Carry Weight potions. Or you might find the Steed Stone useful. If you have a horse, you can still ride it to a town at normal speed if you are over encumbered.

o.o that is a really good, and now really obvious solution to all my problems with inventory.

If you have high enough speech, you can try investing in stores so they will have more gold, but since I have not invested much perks in the speech skill, I do not know much about how the system works. Try keeping one set of armor on you, try not to carry multiple sets. There is nothing wrong with keeping a few enchanted necklaces or rings on you though, since they weigh very little. Try not to carry multiple weapons either. You should maybe a main weapon that you use, a secondary weapon of any kind, and maybe a smaller weapon like a dagger, but you don't have to follow this directly. Only carry the weapons you use most often.

When it comes to loot, don't pick up everything that catches the eye. Like said above, pick up things that are actually useful. Though, I sometimes pick up some expensive loot like an enchanted weapon or armor. But when it comes to looting these items, try not to pick them all up. Only things that can get you some really good coin (if its value is at least 1000, I suggest taking it).

I have a similar system in my home; it's very useful.

Also, you have to be discriminating in what you pick up. You probably won't be able to pick up all the loot in a dungeon, so you have to literally weigh what's worth it to take and what's not. A ring potentially worth 300 septims is usually a better option than a heavy armor piece potentially worth 800. Why? Because 1) you'll never make exactly what an item is potentially worth anyway, unless you put way more perks than is worth it into Speechcraft, and 2) you can carry more rings than armor since they weigh substantially less. I only pick up very heavy items if they're a clear upgrade for something that either I or one of my followers is wearing, or if they're a unique weapon, and/or they're something that's enchanted with an effect I want to learn (and a lot of dungeons have arcane enchanters in them, so I don't necessarily have to carry them far). I also often use followers, so my effective carry capacity is increased.

Past a certain point, you'll have so much money that you won't be worried about picking up every little thing, anyway.

I always give my followers the heaviest non equippable items until I can sell them or store them at home.

Picking what to drop in dungeons, I go by value per weight. Like.... an Orcish dagger is 10g/lb (30g, 3lb). If my other stuff is more valuable by weight, I drop the dagger (and anything else cheap & heavy).

Selling stuff when they run out of cash - buy back something expensive & light, that you might need later. Or, that you can maybe sell again later. Like filled Grand soulgems, or Ebony bars. Then stash that stuff in your house until you either use it, or sell it.

My management is simple, It starts with using the markath house.

In the alchemy room the mead barrel holds my potion (drinks) and alchemy gear, the barrel next to it holds my ingredients. Then the drawers next to the mannequin in the living room has all my smithing items and supplies (dragon scales etc). The chest of drawers to the left of this holds all my unwanted notebooks and letters and an other documents. The barrel next to the door to the dining room in the living room holds all my food supplies. Then in the bedroom the chest holds all my magical items, weapons and quest items and the wardrobe holds all my clothing and armors I want to store.

Everything taken care of in a logical and simple fashion thats easy to remember. When I need money I simply take some potions and or spare weapons/armor and sell them to Gorza the Smith and Hags Cure.

I only take my weapons and armor, some healing/magicka/stamina potions for backup and the odd utility potion, fortify destro for example. I wear heavy gear but Im only carying around 70 weight in total for my "standard" questing supplies.

When collecting, I dont take any gear that is not magical unless is high end (ebony etc). Magical gear with weak enchants I also ignore unless required for learning. I take all potions I find and septims laying around and any enchanting/alchemy supplies the enemies have.

*Note* Things like soul gems should stay on you at all times to keep their charge, as dropping or storing them will drain them.

Weight to value ratio my friend. Eventually you'll peg what is first to be ditchedfor better loot on the fly, and you'll know what not to bother with full stop. Iron armour for example - 30 weight for 120 gold base value is terrible: 4 gold per point of carry space. Iron helmet is 5 weight for 60 gold: 12 gold per point - much better. Get into this mindset and inventory management becomes a breeze

Wow! Some amazingly organized methods here! I had issues in Oblivion with my chests eating my stuff (totally solved in Skyrim) - but old habbits die hard so I still make myself into a packmule (do miss that spell...) via enchantments for Stamina, carry weight & the Steed Stone (and since it's so easy to switch stones now, you can drop that to level up, then get it again to $$$$ up ) . I'll clear out a location or two or do a quest or two then hit the Theives Guild and 99.9% of the time I can sell everthing in one round (also follow the above advice of having Speech perks!!) and I'm on my way. If I can't sell everything I wait 48 hours for merchants to get their gold back. Another good place to "one stop shop" is the College - usually I want to buy soul gems so I buy first to up their gold then can clear out my inventory selling stuff in the Hall of Countenance.

Whether you sell or drop stuff off in one of your homes - it's a stop and pause in action - so pick your poison!

I do use Breezehome to store things I may want to use later; but haven't been nearly organized enough to sort as others have - really a great idea!

The "using followers to carry junk" idea is great too - but I hate followers - they just get in the way when you fight & I keep hitting them and then they get all crabby!