I cut my hair really short, don't do anything with it, then after about 2 weeks I use a little gel to make it not look "fuzzy" then after another couple weeks I use this forming cream and I go with the ol messy look for about 3 weeks, then it gets longer and I go with a look similar to this.

Then when that starts to take me longer than 2 minutes to do my hair I cut it and go through that whole process again.