This document describes a new method for transforming E. coli cells that takes only 5 minutes, compared to the standard 1.5 hour protocol. Key findings include: 1) Incubating cells with DNA on ice for 1-180 minutes before spreading directly onto pre-warmed plates at 37°C resulted in up to double the transformation efficiency compared to the standard heat shock method. 2) For most antibiotic resistance markers, there was no advantage to the standard 30-60 minute recovery period at 37°C after heat shock - the direct spreading method worked as well. 3) The new 5 minute method produced similar high transformation rates for a variety of plasmid and cell line combinations tested.