My guess is that there are a lot of people who kind of feel that they really should back up everything, preferably Real Soon Now. And because it's a king sized pain in the rear, it always seems to hover somewhere around halfway up (or halfway down) the ToDo list - with the result that it just doesn't get done.
I truly salute those of you that have a real well thought out and bullet proof methodology for back-up and stick to it no-matter what. But for those of who like myself who are permanently in a state of seeking one of those elusive Round Tuits, could I share my personal methodology (which seems to work for me).
Firstly, re-arrange your working habits so that everything you do day-to-day is filed in a folder in your "My Documents" folder. As an example, my personal "My Documents" folder contains folders such as: e-mail, PDF files, Word Documents, Spreadsheets, My Pictures, My Music etc etc.
In my case, my "My Documents" folder is between 2Gb and 3Gb.
I have two 8Gb memory sticks - one for odd days of the month and one for even days of the month. At the end of each day, I copy the contents of the "My Documents" folder to the appropriate day's memory stick using a shareware programme called FileSync (which only copies the files that have changed). Depending on how much work I have done and how many files have been added to the folder, that usually takes about two minutes. After which my system gets shut down and the memory stick gets locked away in a filing cabinet.
FileSync isn't freeware - it's shareware, so if you like it, you send them about $5 and they send you a registration code that removes the (mildly irritating) "You haven't paid!" message. It copies all new and modified files from the Source (on your hard disk) to the target (on the USB stick). It also lets you get rid of all the orphans on your memory stick. There are other programmes - but FileSync works for me. You can get it here:
FileWare - Software and Consulting services
Roughly every two weeks (and certainly at least once a month) I write a complete image of my hard disk to a removable disk (specifically a Seagate 500Mb FreeImage USB disk) using Acronis True Image (which is not free, but not expensive, and worth every penny I paid for it). Before I do this, I transfer anything sitting in the "My Documents" folder, such as pictures, music and the like, to more appropriate folders elsewhere on my hard disk. This keeps the "My Documents" folder relatively slim.
So what does this mean? It means that I have all my working documents for the previous two days on memory sticks (this is also very useful when transitioning from desktop to laptop and back again). Which saves me irritation and embarrassment when (for example) I save an empty document onto valuable document that has taken me days to prepare.
The disk image is there should I totally lose my hard disk or complete system - Acronis will simply restore my entire hard disk should that become necessary. And it doesn't matter if it's a couple of weeks out of date, because all my working documents are on the memory sticks - so at worst I'll lose one days work.
Works for me ... one less thing to worry about!
Two observations - I too used to partition my hard disks - kind of helps to pass the time. But would inevitably find that this partition was too small and I wasn't using that partition - so - well, it helps to pass the time!
Also - don't bother with incremental Acronis backups - better to take a full image each time and delete the older ones. Incremental Acronis backups save a bit of time - but you are well screwed if one of the files ever becomes corrupt ...
Sorry this is a bit late - internet access issues 
- but hope it might help someone ...