How to Take a Three Minute Shower

Thanks to last year's Ecolympics, I cut my shower time down by about half, from somewhere in the ten-minute region to somewhere around the five minute region. According to our event page for Power Shower, every minute we cut in our shower time, saves about five gallons of water. So, given those numbers, over a year I saved about 1800 gallons of water.

However, recently my shower time has been floating upwards again.

So, today, on the eve of our 2nd annual Ecolympics (yes, you can still sign up), I'm here to tell you how to have a three minute shower.

Really, all you have to do is turn on the water, start counting to 180, jump in and do your stuff, and turn off the water while you're counting is just ticking from 179 to 180. It can be done!

This morning, it took my shower 40 seconds to warm up (d'oh, waste of 3.33 gallons!) but by the 120 count I was done soaping and washing. That left an ample count of 60 to wash my hair. The shampoo came out quickly (5 seconds), I got a good lather going (10 seconds), good scrubbing action (15 seconds), behind my ears (5 seconds), ouch, stay clear of the eyes (5 seconds)... hey, look at that, 20 seconds left over for rinsing... this is easy... At 160 the suds are dropping all around my feet. At 170, I'm massaging my scalp to get all the shampoo out. I'm going to easily have five seconds left over for that lovely zen shower feeling... 177, 178, 179...

Darn, there's a soap film on my legs that I didn't rinse properly. I'm overtime! 185, 186... And did I do the bottom of my feet? I'm sure I did but... 191, 192... That's gotta be it. Okay, all done.
Three seconds of standing there doing nothing... 198, 199, 200.

Water off!

Twenty seconds over! Hardly an Ecolympics record, but better than my shower times all week.
I'm claiming victory.

You can too. Be a part of our efforts to get individual actions to change the world. Sign up for the Ecolympics today. Challenge yourself to take a shorter shower. You know you want to.