Having a good workflow is important. A workflow that is repeatable and consistent makes your life easier.

I create a branch for every Drupal core issue that I work on and use the issue’s node id as a branch name. For example:

git checkout -b 2284103

This system has many advantages, especially if you work on multiple patches. It’s also quite easy to implement. If you are reading an issue on Drupal.org, you already have the branch name. From there, it’s as simple as copying and pasting from the url. If you have git shell completion installed, you can change your command prompt so that you know which issue you are working on by glancing at the terminal prompt.