Let's see, I was always a fly by the seat of the pants type of writer, then my memory started to fail. At the same time that happened a writing partner started putting my half-assed system to shame with his....
Gave in, and guess what? Life is so much easier. Let's see, I use excell sheets... My last work has over nine excel sheets. All of which help a ton, and more importantly save time...
1. character sheets, I use one excel for all characters, but it's huge length and width
2. scene location sheet
3. chapter word count (as I work off chapter numbers which I revise & store forever--so I need a total word count)
4. using some latin, so have a sheet for those
5. general listing of all research sites used on line for the manuscript for easy relocation.
6. workshop was told that i needed to remember what characters have about them and why--so I made a separate 'thing or prop' listing, which i don't use often enough.
7. I'm using italics in a 3rd POV piece and there is a lot of decisions being made about what works and what doesn't so I creatd this to back and find them in the various chapter i save.
8. It's a tightly timed, DaVinci code thing so i had to create a solid time line...
9. Then I use an old myth and it sort of needed it's own little sheet for time line, goals, more detailed character notes and motivations.
So, yep, I am not a firm believer in these things. I'll never go back!