Use Your Flash Drive

Flash drive, thumb drive, tab drive, whatever you call them, if you're a freelance editor you really need one. Bigger is better, too.

Not only should you keep your plug-ins, various handy apps and documents on it but head over to User/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data and grab what you find in there and dump it onto your flash drive. In there you'll find Window Layouts, Button Bars, Plugins (although this isn't the main plugin folder), your FCP prefs and Custom Settings. Keep all of this handy on your flash drive and you'll save yourself hassles later. I had to do this recently when an editing station I was at needed a reinstall. Luckily, I saved off my FCP prefs before the new HD was installed.

p.s. it's also not a bad idea to have some of your favorite music on there for iTunes ;)