I use Bartender[1] for ~the same purpose. I love the idea of a minimal menu bar there's just too much stuff I might want to check occasionally.

So Bartender just shows me my time tracker (important for client work), Fantastical (I could probably ditch this) and battery status; everything else is in the hidden Bartender draw until I need it. Just one hotkey away - I bind it to Hyper-B[2]

[1] http://www.macbartender.com/

[2] http://brettterpstra.com/2012/12/08/a-useful-caps-lock-key/