Yo gentlemen and ladies,
 
I'm just looking to find some tips that you guys might have for speeding up the workflow - particularly when using a DAW to create stuff mostly in-the-box. I do a lot of stuff that uses synths/plugins pretty heavily, but for some reason I feel like my overall workflow is too disorganised to be as efficient as it could be.
 
I'm thinking about stuff in terms of your folder hierarchies for projects/samples etc, organisation of your VST effects, your personal hotkeys or screen setups, etc etc. Just things that have helped you get to efficient songwriting that takes away or mitigates any hurdles that technology itself may present.
 
 
p.s. bonus points for tips with use of instruments/hardware!

Track and project templates!
 
I have different project templates for different types of projects. For example, for straight-up rock/pop/blues my project template automatically creates track folders labeled "Drum/Perc MIDI", "Drum/Perc AUDIO", "Synth MIDI", "Synth AUDIO", "Guitars" and "Vox". It also supplies reverb and drum busses. It preloads Superior Drummer 3 with internal routing already set up and separate tracks for kick, snare, OH, toms and room. That's a half hour saved right there. If the project will contain orchestration, I have track templates that save just as much time, loading Kontakt with 4 channels, creating 4 MIDI and 4 audio tracks (bass, cello, viola, violin).

In Reaper, regions have really helped me. They allow you to copy whole sections of a song are move, paste, etc. It allowed me to finished rough drafts of songs in an hour or less and then just do small edits to finish them. 

hot keys.
simplify layouts.
get rid of unused anything, especially plugs.