3 Strategies to Take Shorter Showers You Can Try Right Now
⌛ 2 minute read
❄️ Take a cold shower
I used to take cold showers, and you bet that got me out of the shower fast! This should be obvious; the cold water forces you to think of nothing but getting out as soon as possible.
There is one issue, however. This habit is easy to drop, especially when wintertime comes around. In other words, it's not a reliable long-term solution. If you can maintain this habit, great! But for many (including myself), we'll stick with our warm showers.
⏰ Set a timer
Another simple solution would be to simply set an alarm for X minutes, and you know when to leave the shower once it rings. This helps for those whose minds tend to wander in the shower. Nothing beats a reminder!
I used to used this technique, but it wasn't working for me after a few days. Again, if it works for you, great! But I found that my mind would water before/during my actual shower. By the time the alarm rang, I hadn't finished, and now my mind could wander without any other reminders.
🙂 Use the Bathtimer app
I tried everything I could, but I couldn't find a way to fix this problem in the long term. I'm an idea guy and problem solver by nature and a software engineer by trade, so I decided to build my vision of a tool to help me reach my goal.
The idea is similar to the setting a timer solution above, but with some customization. At, for example, the 30 second mark, the app dings so I know move to the next step, say shampoo, and after another minute it dings to let me know that it's time to rinse. It solves my wandering mind problem since it holds me accountable for the entire shower.
I've been using Bathtimer for a few weeks, and I managed to lower my shower time from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. I wanted to share it with anyone else who has a similar problem as I did, so I have released it to the Play Store (iOS App Store coming soon!).