Strategy: Taskbar - Quick launch and short cut keys for programs
6 Keywords: Clutter, Desktop, Task Bar, Toolbars, Short Cut Keys, Keyboard Shortcuts
"I do not like clutter and make sure my Quick launch bar in Vista only has 4 items - Internet Explorer, Show desktop, Outlook and Mozilla Firefox. I find these are the most useful things."
To add programs to the Quick launch bar first find the program in the Start menu then drag the icon to the Quick launch bar or right-click it, and then click Add to Quick Launch. It is easy to delete them with a right click - delete - yes.
"I have also created a keyboard short cut for applications I use a lot, for instance Ctrl + Alt + W loads Word and Ctrl + Alt + S for SPSS." Microsoft has an online help file called 'Create keyboard shortcuts to open programs' 
Quote
"I do not like clutter on the desktop and there are some toolbars that I don’t like, so I get rid of them."
- BenTip
AutoHotkey for Windows is a free, open-source program which offers an 'all-in-one' way for making short cut keys, as well as remapping the keyboard, mouse or joystick. It is possible to record macros for multiple actions so they can be achieved with a key combination and abbreviation expansion is available.
