Selector

Selector is a lite program which doesn't require to be installed that gives you easy access to most used applications.

The first thing you have to do is to set a hotkey that will open the main window of the program, from then on, if you press e.g. 'shift+spacebar', you'll see a cute interface featuiring those shortcuts.

If you usually run the same programs and want tohave all of them at a hand, Selector can be very useful. You will not have the desktop full of icons, but you'll find shortcuts within a snap.