Plenty of work

I've lost track again.  I've lost track of where I am on my entire fiction book writing project.  I'm in the groove and putting the story together and then I can't remember if I wrote in a particular detail that needed to get written or if I just had thought about writing it while it swirled around in my head.
If anyone let's on this business of writing anything longer than a post is just about putting words on a page let me know and I'll set them straight.  My organizational skills are simply lacking when it has come to this project of mine.  My discipline on this particular writing project has been lacking.  This jumping around and leaving it for spells and then coming back and trying to find my spot isn't working and it's making it frustrating.  I can keep writing until the (let me steal this phrase since it's in my head and I'm rushed) cows come home but if the story is leaving things out and not covering details it needs but I forgot to write then it isn't going to work.  For me.  This isn't what I'm working towards and now I'm getting frustrated.
I came up with the idea of a board for my characters when I first started.  I took an index card and wrote each of their names on it (yes - and even naming them was a ponder fest) and bullet pointed characteristics about them.  It worked and reminds me certain things about them when they appear in the writing.  It's a quick reference.   I am thinking I need something like that.  Another board - something more visual for my story line - a quick reference.  That way I can keep track of what I've already written...all those details of what I need to cover.  I know, that is usually an outline and I have one but then I write and things don't always stay exactly to the outline.  Characters get difficult or say something that puts something else in the mix and even though they will eventually get to where they are going (on the outline) it's not always a straight path.  This is the part that makes it more interesting and it supplies that creative spark that keeps me doing it, but I need to get organized!  How can I have over 55,000 words and have to search back to see if the details were written up so I can pull it together?  An example is I might say the main character is going to meet with her father on a certain day and then I can't remember what day it is in the story?  Did I miss writing in their lunch or am I on track for it now?
I'm going to figure this out.  This rookie isn't going to sit here and let more time pass and not get this project going at a consistent, disciplined speed because of a technical difficulty or a faulty memory.
Oh, what I said about anyone who thinks this is as easy as putting words on a page?  I'll set them straight but not soon.  I've got plenty of my own work ahead of me.
TT