If you are just interested in having a quick look at objects whose sky positions you know, or you can get to by 'hopping' from easy to see reference stars, you do not need to do much other than attach the telescope and counterweights. If you want to do some serious hunting using the setting circles, and then do automatic guiding with a clock drive, there are two things you need to do each time you set it up for observing.
First, and this is usually a one-shot adjustment if you observe from the same site each time, is to find out your local latitude by using a good-quality map of your observation site. You then have to unclamp the entire polar axis housing and tilt it manually to this angle.
Second, now comes the hard work. In a previous question I discussed how to orient an equatorial mounting so that you could use the setting circles. What this entails is bore sighting the polar axis so that as you look up the axis it is pointing exactly at the North Celestial Pole towards Polaris, about which the stars rotate each 24 hours. If you pointed the polar axis at Polaris, you would be off by about 1 degree which would produce a very noticeable tracking error especially for objects near the celestial equator. You need to get a book on using a telescope to get the exact step by step directions for how to do this. One place to get this is over at Sky Publishing Corporation. Any good library should also have a few books on amateur astronomy and telescope making.