I don't really have a pattern that I follow when I launch the terminal, but I'd say the first command that I run is either git status or git pull --rebase since I'm usually working in a git repository. It helps to have a custom "environment" configured just how you like it. I keep my dotfiles (configurations) hosted on GitHub (
http://github.com/hodgesmr/dotfiles) so that I can easily load them up on any machine I'm working on and others can use the if they like.
Zach Holman did a good post about dotfiles: http://zachholman.com/2010/08/dotfiles-are-meant-to-be-forke...