If we're staying on the hook, say to cut a branch out of the way to improve the routing for the sling(s), we'll keep the lanyard on the hook, or transfer it to the tree while cutting, to be 'tied in twice'. Otherwise once up top I remove the lanyard from the hook to attach the sling(s) to the pick, then rappel down and lanyard in, pull my line out of the ring above the ball, and tie in below the point where I'll cut the pick free. I use the Akimbo pretty much exclusively now for crane jobs, and feel quite secure with this approach.
Now, the other two climbers of the three of us just use a figure eight, so they tend to 'always' be lanyarded in either to the hook or the tree as they are prepping the pick, due to the rapid descent which could occur if their line got accidentally nudged loose of the figure eight.