There's a command line tool which helps you keep to this branching model. Available here.
https://github.com/nvie/gitflow
Unfortunately it seems to of been abandoned by the author. A more active fork is available here
https://github.com/petervanderdoes/gitflow
Note that if installing on Ubuntu using apt, you'll get the no longer maintained version.
This cheat sheet helped me get up and flowing fast.
http://danielkummer.github.io/git-flow-cheatsheet/