You can create a keyboard shortcut to open a much-used program if the program has a shortcut on the desktop and/or in the Start menu. Here's how:

1. Right click the program's shortcut on the desktop or Start menu and select Properties.
2. Click the Shortcut tab.
3. In the Shortcut key box, press the key combination you want to use to start the program. The key combo should include two of the following: CTRL, ALT, SHIFT plus one other key. For example, to start my PaperPiort scanning and document management program, I press CTRL+ALT+P.
4. Click Apply.
5. Click OK to close the dialog box.

If you make shortcuts for your most used programs, this can be much quicker than navigating through the Start menu or even than taking your hands off the keyboard to click an icon on the quick launch bar [Note that this may not work for all programs].