My french teacher back in high school was also an emerging novelist (he's now quite famous here in The Netherlands). He used a system with pink colored post-it

My french teacher back in high school was also an emerging novelist (he's now quite famous here in The Netherlands). He used a system with pink colored post-it notes to keep track of his story lines, yellow post-its for quotes and green post-its for general ideas. His desk used to be a nice collection of post-its, and he would regularly send the entire class away to work on his novel. (He'd be really startled when the class entered his classroom, as if it was a large surprise that he'd have to teach us french. "Eeehm... I'm busy. Go away!" he'd say). Bottomline: use the simplest tools you can and don't let things (or classes!) distract you.