Create a shortcut to open Terminal in Mac OSX

Launch Automator. Create a document of type “Service”. In the document, add a “Run AppleScript” action. Here’s the AppleScript to paste into the action:

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Terminal"
        do script ""
        activate
    end tell
    return input
end run

Set the “Service receives” popup to “no input”. It should look like this overall:

Save the document with the name “New Terminal”. Then go to the Automator menu (or the app menu in any running application) and open the Services sub menu. You should now see the “New Terminal” service:

If you click it, Terminal should open a new window.

To assign a keyboard shortcut to it, choose the “Services Preferences…” item from that menu. (Or launch System Preferences, choose the Keyboard pane, then choose the Shortcuts tab, then choose Services from the left-hand list.) Scroll to the bottom of the right-hand list and find the New Terminal service. Click the right end of the New Terminal row and press your preferred keyboard shortcut:

Now you should be able to press your keyboard shortcut in most circumstances to get a new terminal window.