We can talk the pros and cons of different hardware used, but I will only talk about your data. I assume that you already have copies of all programs installed so they can act as program backups. If you have any downloaded programs that you do not have a copy of on CD, back them up now.

The first thing you have to do is work out want data you need to keep backed up, then data that would like to keep a backup of. This can determine how often you backup critical data and how often you backup the rest of your data.
Then you need to find where that data is located on your computer.
At this point you might like to relocate data so its all in one place.
For example, your email files maybe stashed away in a directory but you may not know where that is. I relocated my Outlook data directory under my My Documants folder. That way I backup the My Documents folder and all the data I need is in subdirectories.
Check all of your programs and find out where the data is located, move it to a folder under My Documents and change the default data location in each programs settings.
Now you can backup from one location, either as a total backup of everything, or a sellective backup of individual program data.
Now you need to work out which hardware you will use to back this up. If you use your CD burner, your data might exceed the capacity of your CD's. This is where you can selectivly backup different data so it fits onto the CD's. I have this problem with my pictures and have to divide them up into different folders to make them fit.
When your data is organised into one location like this it makes it easier to manage.
Another good idea is to not overwrite data on your backup media. If you have a series of backups, you have a buffer in case you back up corrupt or changed data. If you backup a file that you have made a change to, and you want to go back to the original you can go back through the backups until you find the original version of that file to restore.

When I read this back, I realized that I have used the terms directory and folder in the same sentence. These are the same thing but I was brought up in the DOS days and tend to still use directory when talking.