EXIT STRATEGIES

In a town where “fashionably late” is the norm, there’s one instance where time is of the essence: getting to work in the morning.

But it’s no easy matter. Factor in housemates or spouses fighting for the bathroom, jam-packed trains, endless lines at Starbucks and the occasional losing battle with a hangover and/or snooze button, and you’re pretty much guaranteed a no-show at your 9 a.m. meeting.

Anticipating such obstacles, many locals have their morning routines down to a science. They run the gamut from those who make it from bed to door faster than most people down their first cup of joe to those whose a.m. ritual is practically a separate shift.

Some calibrate their routine with precision that would impress a Swiss watchmaker. Like Alyssa Norris, 22, who at her former job as a real-estate manager had the commute from hell, involving one bus, two subways, the LIRR and a shuttle bus to get from her Roosevelt Island apartment to Port Washington, LI. Consequently, she adopted a freakishly itemized routine: a three-minute snooze button she’d press twice, eight minutes spent checking e-mail, an eight-minute shower, a five-minute breakfast, and teeth that got brushed as she simultaneously gathered her things.

Catching her favorite shuttle driver (i.e., the fast one) meant she could walk to the F train. Catching the other, however, meant a full-fledged sprint down the escalator and stairs to edge through the subway doors right before they closed.

“Seriously, I did know my commute this well,” she says.

While Norris’ routine was complicated by travel connections, Margaret Lloyd’s routine is crazy before she even leaves home. Or it was when the 29-year-old ad manager used to spend two full hours just to do her hair, put on makeup and pick an outfit. She’s since sacrificed much of her routine (she uses two -in-one shampoo!) and gets out in 40 minutes, leaving her Clinton apartment with wet hair and a bare face – a 180 from the days when she’d never leave without full makeup and hair done in hot rollers.

the long and short 0f it

Then there’s computer-programming manager Tanveer Badal, 26, who literally goes from bed to door in five minutes. With a 15-minute Brooklyn-to-Union Square commute on the L, Badal can go from a dead sleep to a desk chair faster than some finish a shower.

Still, even with such a simple routine, every second counts.

“If I get to the platform and just miss a train, I immediately start thinking back to all the things I could’ve done to make it,” he says. “Should I have brushed my teeth 10 seconds less? Should I have waited to pee until I got to work?”

Badal used to save a few precious minutes by bringing his razor and shaving in the men’s room – where he’d sometimes brush his teeth and floss, too. No more, though – he grew a beard specifically so he’d hardly need to shave at all.

In case it needs pointing out, there tends to be a gender gap when it comes to getting ready, a subject that divides men and women as reliably as the relative merits of “Gray’s Anatomy.” It’s something Mary, a Lower East Sider who works in Midtown, can’t fail to note as she watches her boyfriend, Jim, hit the street 20 minutes after waking.

“He sleeps two hours later and still gets out the door before I do.”

Male or female, those with kids face an added challenge – having to get their charges out the door as well as themselves. Upper East Sider Julie Sheldon, a post-doc fellow at Rockefeller University, has an unbelievable two-minute commute – “I literally cross a bridge and I’m there” – but since she’s also a mother of two, it takes her a full two hours to leave the house.

She’s up at 7, and from then on it’s tightly scheduled multitasking – from taking a two-minute shower while her older son eats to letting her younger son chill in his stroller while she and her older son brush their teeth – until the nanny takes over at 8:50.

Another mom, Gabrielle Siganoc, employs a strategy that’s knocked her routine down to 30 minutes: Do as much as possible in advance. Not only does the Long Island marketing manager plan her outfit and wash her hair the night before, she also prepares her 3-year-old’s lunch, pours his morning sippy cup of milk, pre-loads his favorite DVD into the player and packs the diaper bag for her husband, who drops him off at day care. That way, after she wakes at 5:30, showers and gets dressed, all she has to do is settle her son on the couch with the milk and hit “play” – and she’s out by 6.

running behind

Not everyone plans their morning around getting to work as fast as possible. Some have more civilized routines that involve exercise, a favorite radio station – even, heaven forbid, relaxation.

James Navarrete, a fashion director from Forest Hills, “eases into the day” with a classical station on his clock radio. Then it’s some light stretching before he goes to his meditation room, does the sign of the cross opposite an image of the Virgen of Guadalupe, then meditates before jumping into the shower. Both the music and meditation are key to starting the day right, he says.

“This city is so hectic at times that you need to feel grounded.”

Seema Shah, a 23-year-old community coordinator, says returning to bed after her shower for 20 minutes of lite FM helps prepare her for the grind ahead.

“It calms me,” she says. “I know my day’s going to be long, so I capitalize on the chance to see my bed.”

Abby, 26, can’t function without her 55-minute morning run.

“Even if I oversleep, it’s the same routine. I never skip coffee, breakfast, reading the paper or my morning run, even if it means I’m late,” says the product manager (who asked to withold her last name, given the dim view her boss might take of such a policy).

It seems a morning routine, whether long or short, complex or simple, offers hardworking New Yorkers a little calm before the storm – and some needed structure in a 24/7 town with endless possibilities. Which may explain why people like Abby can be so loath to alter them.

“Even if they made me count a half day of vacation for being late, I wouldn’t change,” she says.