Yer any tips welcome

I always set up my own shelf. I never got on with the hotbox menus, but my old mate mate used to only use that and get rid of everything else. That gave him a lot more work space.

I also have a very different set of short cut keys which took me a few months to get perfect. I keep a copy of my prefs on a cd safe and sound. The best thing is when you install a new version of Maya it gives you the option to copy old prefs. - Great idea Maya team thx you.

Another tip I have that some don`t know about (which is really useful if you have duel monitors) is the "Panel>tear of copy" option meaning you can have more than 4 view at once. I use it a lot when skinning and animation which off joints in one and then hiding the model in others.