I'll start with a productivity tip. In my workflow, I always branch off from master. When I'm done or need to switch back to master, I would type "git checkout master". Merging the previous branch would then be "git merge branchname". As it turns out, there's a shorthand for that, just like on UNIX when navigating folders. You can make use of "-" as a reference to the previous branch. That way, going back and forth is as easy as "git checkout -" and "git merge -". Awesome.