I would recommend never using git checkout to clear local changes, and instead recommend either git stash or git stash -p depending on whether you want to save

I would recommend never using git checkout to clear local changes, and instead recommend either git stash or git stash -p depending on whether you want to save the whole work tree or just part of it. The stash subcommand internally creates commits for the stashed content, so you can probably also get to them via the reflog, though I haven't personally needed to do this.