Mornings are tough enough without the added hassle of showering. There's breakfast to consider, and you may have an animal to take care of, or even kids! So here are some simple steps to morning hygiene in less than 10 minutes, designed for the working man...


  1. First, open the hot & cold valves to the proper level. Don't waste time by testing the water over and over. Invariably, it will take several minutes to reach optimal temperature; it's just a law of nature. Maximize this time by urinating and perhaps brushing your teeth (not necessarily in that order).
  2. By now, the water should be fine. Get in & start by lathering on the shampoo. Idealy, if you're coordinated enough, this can be done with one hand while the other grabs the soap and washes off whatever hairs may have accumulated during the previous day's washing.
  3. Now, adopt a top-down method of washing, starting with the face, ears and neck. This can be accomplished in several quick motions. Move on now to the torso, paying special attention to the armpits and belly button area.
  4. What method you choose from this point on is purely personal, however, keep in mind that it is not wise to wash the feet before the genitals.
  5. If you insist on using conditioner on your hair, you should rinse after step 3 and apply the conditioner while performing step 4 (it can be done, trust me).
  6. Rinse everything off your body quickly, turn off the shower and dry off using a top-down method. Any moisture you missed towelling off will evaporate while you shave.
  7. Brush your hair back, slap on some after-shave, dress and bang! You're ready to go. All this in less than 10 minutes!


Hope this helps.
I would suggest a different approach:

  1. When the alarm clock goes off, hit the Snooze button.
  2. Eight or nine minutes later, the annoying thing comes back again. Hit the damn snooze button once more.
  3. Some time later, there comes the stupid alarm clock again! Damn, they never give up! This time just turn off the alarm completely.
  4. Wake up twenty minutes later, in despair. You lost a lot of precious time! Run like mad to the shower.
  5. Turn on the hot water faucet to the max. Let it roll and take a pee in this meantime to maximize your timing.
  6. Since you're half asleep, you realize a little late that you are peeing outside the toilet. Damnit! Spend 5 minutes cleaning it.
  7. You're wasting a lot more time than you can afford! Rush to the shower! Of course, the water has been flowing for a while and is now boiling hot. Unfortunately, you only realize this after getting burned.
  8. Your screams wake up your wife and kids (if any).
  9. Take a quick shower. You're really late now.
  10. After you get out of the shower, you notice you forgot to shave. Damn! Waste some 15 more minutes shaving and 10 minutes after that looking for band-aids to cover your cuts.
  11. Since you took way too long doing all this, you should feel like doing number 2 now. Naturally, it sucks taking a crap after you take a shower, but what can you do? Spend 15 more minutes on this noble activity.
  12. Get dressed as fast as you can.

And here you stand, dressed, clean and shaved. Ready for the day ahead. Until...

(you wake up two and a half hours later and realize you've been sleeping all this time and dreaming all this. Oh man... Next time, wait until you get out of bed before turning off the stupid alarm clock).

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