The first point is stronger than it seems, at least for me. It is a bit like requiring a definitive title to a novel I'm starting to write before the first line is there.
The difficult part, I think, is on the one side realizing what power you have and how to use it, and on the other side plain discipline.
Candidate branches for deletion: git branch --merged
Do you think Da Vinci sat at his table and thought "let's invent the helicopter" (with a nice unique memorable name for his work in progress)?
I would rather imagine Da Vinci being supposed to draw some boring architectural work or even writing against his will to his great-grant aunt. And then a paper fell off his table, spinning away. And then I imagine Da Vinci drawing a spinning paper on the margins, and adding equations, schemas, and getting deeply inside this new project, which becomes clearer in his mind as he works on it, without ever having a name.
This is exactly why I hate deciding a branch name before some tasks and I love `git add -p` which allow me to add a bucnh of unrelated things in the work tree and extract the juice later.
http://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-jwsceasy/source-control-ma...