automate some of it.. cvs commit

[Harry Putnam]

Setup: Single user repository home setup
       Light script devel and tracking of rc files

Probably going at this all wrong.  My usage has grown up kind of by
accident.  Whenever I needed to keep track of something, I'd figure
out enough about cvs to get it committed and available.

Overtime I fell to a method that may be a bad one but has worked for
me to a large extent.  Now I want to automate some of it to cut down
non the constant need to commit update co etc.

My method works like this:

I might import a project into cvs by going to the directory
on the filesystem where the work is going on and saying:

cvs import -m "projects with procmail" \
 209/home/reader/projects/proc reader start

Then go to a directory one above an already checked out version of the
full repository:

If the full checkout is /209 then go to / 
>From there maybe run:
   cvs update first to make sure everthing is copecetic
Then:
     cvs co 209/home/reader/projects/proc

Now have the newly imported stuff on tap.

What I do from there may not be the normal way to do this.

Return to the home directory location of the old working directory and
say:
   rm -rf proc
   ln -s /209/home/reader/projects/proc proc
I now have a symlink into the working co module.

Any work I do here will be seen by cvs.  What I want now is to do
whatever it takes so that when I create files, directories etc. 
Periodically, I can run something that adds new stuff, commits revised
old stuff, adds newly created directories or what ever.

So far I just use the normal commands as needed but that is pretty
time consuming.  One needs to run several things to know what is the
state of things before hand.

maybe cvs update or cvs status
Then cvs add
Which can be especially tedious if you've added a directroy or two and
files in them, since last time.

Finally cvs commit, and vi your way thru as the various files are
processed.  Probably a pretty primitive way to more experienced
users.

I need some tips to get this whittled down to a little less pain in
the butt.

How do people automate some of this?