Alfred, the incredibly useful productivity utility...

Alfred, the incredibly useful productivity utility from Running with Crayons, lets you create “Groups” for launching a bunch of apps and files all at once (the Powerpack add-on is required). Add everything you want to a list, give it a keyword, and call it up whenever you want your Mac to do more of your work for you.

Right-click a group in Alfred’s preferences and you can export it as a .alfredextension file to share with others. Running with Crayons now has an Extensions site for finding more extensions and sharing your creations.

Taking this idea one step further in version 1.0 which just went beta, Alfred’s upcoming Global Hotkeys feature allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to open Groups, collections of URLs, specific apps, toggling iTunes features, and more.

Alfred is free to use. Its Powerpack option, required for features mentioned here and many others, costs about $20.