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[20firebird]

Unless I need a dwarf to do one specific thing, I just leave them with whatever labors they have. Quite a lot of idlers.
I also take really good care of my little guys (shocking, I know); I've got a grand dining hall completed, a statue garden being built, I'm working on at least 2x2 bedrooms for everyone (only got the first 10), and I'm planning on adding a zoo that'll probably never be used. Granted, I'm also planning on a gladiator arena...

[SlyStalker]

Always a big statue dedicated to Armok, and an even bigger one to me, their Overlord.

[Urist_McArathos]

A few others earlier on in this thread have covered various similar things to me, but here we go.

I used to be REAL bad about designating EVERYTHING from the get-go: before the game is even unpaused I've already set out digging orders for a massive agricultural quarter, workshops, stockpiles, tunnels for minecarts linking them all together, plumbing and water works, living quarters, dining halls, baths, hospitals, EVERYTHING.  I finally broke myself of this habit when I realized that my miners had a tendency not to dig out any one area completely, meaning it could take over an in-game year before enough spaces were clear to get a functioning fort rolling.  Now I just do it in stages: workshops and beds get crammed wherever they'll fit in those massive sections in progress, and stockpiles are thrown together as I need them until the basic layout is done, then the entire fort slows to a crawl as I put down proper stockpiles and start building furniture and designating rooms, and everyone drops what they're doing to haul pretty much everything for a few months.  Inevitably I'll miss trading with a caravan or three as a result of this mess.

I do this because I hate repurposing old, smaller areas or messy looking forts.  Despite my desire for clean, nice looking forts I am terrible at making them aesthetically pleasing (either symmetrical or organic shapes).

My military is always the last thing to get put together: even now when I start with plenty of bronze as a rule, I still find literally everything else taking priority.  I just don't have enough migrants because I'd rather make sure I have enough in every other industry before devoting any to soldiers.  It's so bad I will often have two dedicated, full-time soap makers before I have a single soldier so much as pick up an axe.  Even worse, that soldier will probably be training and in full armor before a single bar of soap is even made.  It's even worse on a map with clay, sand, and magma (can't start the army until I have three potters, three glassmakers, and a host of smiths and furnace operators of course!).  Rare is the fort of mine that survives its first siege, and every megabeast that has attacked my fort has slaughtered it proper unless I had some cage traps running.  I tend to wait until the army is started to put down traps; not as a rule of any kind, I just don't bother with defense until it's pretty much too late.

On the plus side, I've never lost a fort to FPS death at least.

[DrNightKOT]

I make sure my fort has glass industry rolled out as if it a vital industry. Masonry? Pff, I have steel-tough doors made of magma heat and infinite sands!

[Murdersquish]

Starting with the first migration wave, all men and asexual dwarves get drafted into the military, regardless of their proficiencies. Some allowances are made, but only in extreme circumstance.

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

I build towns outside on the surface. Underground is only for dungeons, basements, sewers and mining up materials, as well as accessing the underground from a secured structure.

[MODcrazy]

I carve out rooms for workshops in exactly the size they are, close them off with doors and place a hallway between the workshop and the stockpile. An I do that nearly always as soon as I can afford it. The good thing about this is that you get quite some stone from the hallways, and that building destroyers can target my doors instead of something else.

[RailroadRider]

I have to designate EVERY tree on the map. This usually leads to one injured dwarf, and one proficient woodcutter.
I also have a thing for HUGE embarks, not 16 x 16, but at least 6x4.

[StagnantSoul]

I really don't know why, but I have a massive soft spot for ant men. If I see them, I'll give them platinum blowguns, so when they run out of blowdarts, they'll have bone crushers, give the spearmen adamantine spears, elevate all their physicals, heal them during fights, after fights, give them platinum shields, and, if they're friendly, even station a few soldiers nearby to protect them. If they're not friendly, I'll leave them be. I can watch anything else die and not care, but I can't let ant men die. I have a map with three queens on it, so this is great. In fact, I may have accidentally made one the queen of my civ...

[taptap]

Ever since I managed to pierce aquifers I have not embarked in an embark without aquifer.

I value flatness of an embark over its resources.

I crosstrain heavily and turn off artefacts to not have moods ruin the slow training for me.

I don't have cats.

[Dirst]

I really don't know why, but I have a massive soft spot for ant men. If I see them, I'll give them platinum blowguns, so when they run out of blowdarts, they'll have bone crushers, give the spearmen adamantine spears, elevate all their physicals, heal them during fights, after fights, give them platinum shields, and, if they're friendly, even station a few soldiers nearby to protect them. If they're not friendly, I'll leave them be. I can watch anything else die and not care, but I can't let ant men die. I have a map with three queens on it, so this is great. In fact, I may have accidentally made one the queen of my civ...

I had a map in 0.34.11 that had six ant man queens in the first cavern layer.  The fort fell to a forgotten beast shortly thereafter, but the 1-queen-per-11000-antmen ratio had me worried.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Urist McLuckless cancels cut trees, interrupted by soldier ant woman

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[Lemunde]

Well, where do I begin? All of my forts have a bit of a disorganized feel to the layout. I don't like having just a bunch of squares and rectangles all lined up in a row so I mix it up a lot.

• I tend to leave single tiles unmined in large rooms to act as natural supports.
• I use the soil layers sparingly, mostly for farms and refuse.
• I always plant surface crops and use them as a primary source of food and booze.
• I use cage traps sparingly.
• I construct cisterns instead of wells.
• I often embark on desert biomes. When I do I tend to make glass a primary industry.
• I engrave walls and floors in patterns, unique to each room or type of room.

Of course a picture is worth a thousand words. This is what a typical section of one of my fortresses looks like: http://imgur.com/vDsJtFj

[Arcvasti]

I read the forum instead of working on my fort. Or homework, for that matter.

Or sleeping. Or eating.

* Arcvasti cancels breathing: Posting on Bay12

[Badger Storm]

Everybody gets a 2x2 bedroom.  All tombs are 3x3 and get a slab. 
I let my dwarves run freely around the caverns where they're liable to Die Horribly.
I don't use Dwarf Therapist because seeing that big spreadsheet is kind of overwhelming.
I deliberately limit growth during the first year or two, so I can handle the migrants I get and some of my dwarves can have babies.
If I get far enough in a fort, I spend stone and labor on color-coding workshops.
I tend to use iron when I could probably use steel, mostly because I'm lazy and steelmaking is tedious.
I always mine into a hillside and have that be the "main" floor.  If there isn't any stone there, dining rooms and long-term quarters are dug out in the first stony layer.

[Itnetlolor]

I like the compass/clockwork system I apply to certain setups. Optimization level depends on purpose and setup, I guess. Tends to yield in rather structurally organic fort designs with a chance of geometric prettiness. In a sense, I noticed my forts follow a rather hive-like, yet flowy design structure. In other cases, it also ends up looking like a sophisticated flowchart.

Funny enough, about that, I am now designing forts after the flowcharts I make as their plans. Branching in 3D sometimes (yielding in potential hive-fortresses). Like I mentioned earlier, it's level of optimization depends on purpose assigned, and how it's designed. Excellent examples are Wavehandle (The best example of a hive cluster would be the trade depot/warehouse) and my latest build (that lost it's first year because I didn't save during, so I'm back to square 1 (fortunately, I already embarked). At least it gives me an opportunity to try again, but a bit more refined and efficient, compared to my last playthrough.

EDIT:
Just as well, first time playing the new version, and holy Armok, I didn't expect chopping a few trees would overstock me on wood supply so fast (first chop through took out a fair amount of fruit trees; now I do conservative chopping to maximize fruit yields, while still collecting). I think building airships can be a signature thing I can do with completed forts now; especially with some building tricks I learned over time, and so on. Being short-stocked on wood was the main issue with building airships; nowadays, it's a trivial matter now; getting the copper (more flexible (higher heat capacities as well) and prettier than iron or steel) supply (boilers) is the next challenge (unless I do the coin-exploit).

Add another to the list, I preserve my environments (no destroying the surface to find materials like gems and rare metals (or copper veins) and such), or try to keep a consistent color pattern through my forts; especially where Stonesense and the like are concerned.

EDIT EDIT:
Started over. Half a year, and everything's working beautifully. Sure, it's not entirely efficient now, but it will be soon enough. However, the flowcharting method of building is working like a charm.

Another thing I do: Dig out a connection to flowing water, and make a fancy watering hole/bar/tavern (Wavehandle has an example). In my latest fort, it's not the primary dining hall (though I do leave a food/drink stockpile in the center of it, and it's surrounded by about 24 seats (chair+table)), but it's more like a social hall. Makes for a good meeting zone. The epic dining hall is elsewhere. This is just a hole in the ground with a water source.