The specific way I tracked which version of a document was current

Small but genuinely useful practice: as my personal statement and various supporting documents went through many revisions over months, I adopted a simple, consistent version-naming convention (date plus a short description) rather than relying on generic "final," "final_v2," "final_FINAL" naming, which I'd started with and quickly regretted. Every file got a name like the date it was last substantively edited plus a one-word note on what changed, stored in a single folder with older versions moved to a clearly labeled archive subfolder rather than deleted. This meant I always knew, at a glance, which version was actually current, and could still go back and check what an earlier version said if I needed to reference how something had evolved. Sounds like a small administrative detail, but with a document that goes through dozens of revisions over many months, this kind of discipline is what prevented me from accidentally working from, or worse, submitting, a stale version at some point in the process.