1. If you don't use it get ride of it.
2. Once you file the soul gem store it in your house. You won't need until your ready to use it for enchanting.
3. Buy a house, if you don't already have one. It's a great place to store items you may need for future trips.
4. You don't need 100lbs of potions. Most dungeons, caves, or forts are loaded with them and you replace them as you go.
5. Save often. I like to save before I open a door. Nothing svcks more than loosing the last one to two hours of game play because I got my tail kicked when I opened that door.
6. Be careful how much you load up your companion. They can die and you may not be able to take with you everything you stored on them. You can't fast travel over encumbered.
7. When looting bodies try and only take item of higher value. No point caring around 20 pairs of shoes worth one gold. Unless you have a thing for shoes.

To answer your question when I leave my house I'm around 120lbs. This includes around 200 arrows, one bow, a sword, light armor, and 50 health potions. My max carry is 345lbs. By the end of a dungeon I'm close to the max. Plus all the junk you can't remove from your inventory because they are quest items and you have not found that quest yet.

This applies to me all to well.

I've got a cap of 480, and normally when I leave base I've got about <120 weight. I take my Daedric Bow & Dagger, Glass/Elven/Orcish/Steel arrows, Light Armor Helm/Chest/Gauntlets/Boots, enchanted ring & necklace, maybe 40-50 weight in potions, and all my empty soul gems.

I know what you mean!! I was so tired of constantly fiddling with my inventory to make space for new stuff and clear out old junk that at one point I just dropped everything that I didnt have equipped (except jewellery because its light) or wasnt a health potion. I then took off and didnt look back. Felt cathartic. So free. Like a great big weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.

I store all of my crafting materials in one chest in my house and all of my "cool, but rarely used" equipment in another. If I get into content that I can't handle with what I'm wearing and my spells/shouts (almost never happens), i reload my last save, run back home, get the necessary stuff, then try again.

Also, don't bother picking up staves in this game. The value per weight is stupidly low, and the "casting time" on all of them but one makes their dps too low to be practical. I was finding myself carrying 3-4 at a time, and those things are heavy!

If you don't have the appropriate weightless armor perk, steed stone is basically a must. My problem with the pickpocket perk is that I never use my pickpocket skill, even on my assassin type character. If i want what somebody is carrying, I kill them and take it. Without skill, no perk =(.

Like others, I use the steed stone.

I'm very particular with what I carry. I currently leave my house weighing in at about 90 lbs. That's full daedric armor, sword, bow. The pugliest gloves in case I get into a brawl. A pickaxe in case I come across ore. And currently no more that 15 specific potions. A few misc items under 'book' and 'misc' that barely add to any weight. I also carry around specific thieves and dark brotherhood items, and well as certain amulets. I basically have everything I need for anything that may happen along my journey, and try to maintain a weight of no more than 90-91 lbs upon leaving my house. Gives me plenty of room for loot!

It seems to me that I'm always carrying about 987 pounds worth of potions... even when I sell/drop/consume the ones I would never use.

Yeah my pure mage is always weighed down by potions. I find myself chugging magicka potions a lot, so I always seem to have many pounds of them on me at all times.

Max capacity bugs the hell out of me. I always seem to be at max, in Morrowind and Oblivion too.

I don't carry random junk stuff, it's just the potions and ingredients. They weight like 0.2 or 0.5 or something, but they add up very quickly.... But if I don't carry all those ingredients I won't be able to make more potions as I go around...and if I don't have all those potions??? Well...I might need them!

So I always struggle because I'm a hoarder. Otherwise I've always used a particular container in the Fighters Guild or somewhere like that. I have just bought the house in Whiterun though so I will probably start being more selective about what I carry around with me.

As was said... Steed Stone gives +100 carry and makes your worn armor weigh 0 (2 perks in one stone). It is located by Solitude.

You can drag a corpse to the entrance of a dungeon and use it as a storage chest, and just fast travel to sell it. Most places there is usually something right by the entrance that volunteers for the position anyways bliviongate: