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First of all, choose software to help you.  There are a lot of nice choices.  Picasa is a good free option for Windows, and iPhoto is great for Mac.  Both let you do basic editing and organizing all in one.

Download photos off your camera as soon as possible after taking pictures. Not doing so can lead to the painful realization that your memory card is full at a poor time!

The best tool for organizing your digital photos is the delete button.  Don't download what you won't want to keep and show others. Immediately get rid of ‘the junk’. It’s a photographic purge—the less you have in front of you to organize, the easier it will be to get them all in order.

Separate photos into descriptively named folders (and subfolders) after downloading them to your computer. Devise short names that trigger a memory so you don't have to open multiple files when searching for pictures.

Name your photos as a part of your download routine.  Give your photos clearly identifiable filenames will help you find the images you're looking for quickly and easily. It also helps you remember what they are and who's in them. 
Chronological order is a good way to organise.

A Folder could look like this:
Main Folder –

• Photographs 2009

Sub-Folders –

• January 2009: New Years Day Breakfast, Holiday at Noosa

• February 2009: Jane’s Birthday, First Day at School

• April 2009: Easter, Ben's Birthday, Disney on Ice

Having difficulty sorting images into the appropriate folder? The first step is to create a "To Be Sorted" folder, but don't let it become a virtual shoebox of unsorted images. That can easily happen because not only do we take more digital photos than traditional prints, but also because a virtual shoebox doesn't clutter up the dining room -- so out of sight, out of mind. 

If you have photos that look similar, pick your favorites, the ones that make you smile or stir your heart, and feel free to delete the others.  It is more enjoyable to look at your favorite 25 photos of an event, rather than 100 photos that look the same.  Just like when you declutter your stuff, if you get rid of the extras photos, the ones you keep become more special. 

Once you have done this, you’ll enjoy looking through the pictures as a slideshow on your computer, and you won’t feel as guilty about not printing them out or putting them into albums.  Make sure you sort your images every few months, and be realistic about how many of a certain event should be saved, and then delete the rest.

And, don't forget: Always back up your files as the last step every time you download any images from your camera. Copy all the new pictures onto an external hard drive or burn them onto a CD.

Rename existing photos by batching using Windows

It's easy to automatically rename many files at once (called "batching") with the Windows XP operating system.

1. Open a folder of images you want to rename. Highlight all the images in the folder by selecting Edit and Select All from the menu bar.
2. Right click the first photo in the folder and select Rename.
3. Enter a name that can describe every image in the folder. For example: Becky's_birthday_2006.jpg. Be sure to add the file type (.jpg is the most widely used for images).
4. Windows XP will then automatically rename all the files in the folder and number them in order.

Don't wait till it's just too difficult to get your p-hotos organised ... or if you already have a large volume of photos, then do the 15 minute de-clutter ... spend 15 minutes each day and organise the photos in small chunks!

Good luck!

Check out these links also ...

Organising Photos

Organized Photos.com

Organizing images in Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0

Organize your digital pictures (Windows XP)