I always press down on the B button when catching Pokemon, it's a habit I've had forever, my friend and I used to think it increased our chances of catching the pokemon, lol.
Near the beginning, if I don't trade over any pokemon, I mainly concentrate on raising my starter, and leave the others to rot. (Except when I have Charmander, I raise a Mankey to beat Brock, but I stop training him soon after)
Speaking of trading pokemon, I often trade over EV trained pokes to sweep through the game, as I can't stand my pokemon having bad EVs and stats. >_>
Finally, if I haven't decided all the pokemon for my team, I'll go get a pokemon that seems 'cool' to me, then get bored with it ten minutes later, then get another one, get bored, get another pokemon, get bored again, and so on. I did this in Leaf Green, where it took me forever to decide on a sixth team member.
~Aquarelle