I Need to Develop a System

I've been writing my character Helyanwe's life story and it's got a very long way to go. I work on it at home and also at the shop, but using different programs and bringing the text back and forth on a thumb drive. After I am finished with the basic writing, I start revising. When I am finished revising, I post to my writers board and let my fellow Lizards take bites. They are usually excellent at finding little things I've missed. I make changes there and finally bring things back onto my hard drive for final polishing before putting the story out for general reading.

 But, I need a system. I'm editing here and there, grabbing a little bit from a chapter at a time. I need to have the most recent revision as the one that gets posted. I'm starting to lose track of which chapter got worked on last. So today I will bend my thoughts to this and work out a notation system that I can use to keep up to date on my revisions. I suspect that this story will be taking me through this time next year, and perhaps even longer, so a system early on is absolutely essential.

 Why is it that I can organize an entire wall of beads and all of my art supplies (ignoring the fact that I still need to clean the den from my latest project) but can't organize revisions on my hard drive? Sheesh!