How to manage multiple patches

[Kris Warkentin]

I'm seeking the wisdom of the experienced free software developers.

When you have a patch in your sandbox waiting to be committed, what do 
you do to keep working and not get scrambled?

I've been pondering various solutions whereby I keep a text diff and do 
some clever combination of patching and reverting to get back to a state 
where I can just cvs commit but it seems like it could be fairly error 
prone.

Do people just keep multiple sandboxed?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Thanks

Kris