Yet another of the helpful improvements brought to us by Vista is a “Favorite Links” area in the File explorer (and most file browse dialogs). By default, you’ll see special folders like “Documents” and “Pictures” but you can drag any folder here to add a shortcut of your own.
I use this feature regularly to access locations I would otherwise have to navigate too often. Among the default items listed here is also “Recently Changed” and “Searches” two very helpful items if you are not creating links of your own as I suggested. Recently changed is essentially a search for recently changed items (which include documents and not just folders as you might desire here).

If you don’t see your favorite links listed, click Organize > Layout > Navigation Pane to expose it along with a folder browser. You can resize the area as you wish and delete any items you don’t care about. These are simply stored as hyperlinks in your profile’s special folder entitled “Links”. (C:\Users\\Links).