Here's the steps I take when I'm doing a FULL(w/o buffing cuz iono how lol) detail on my car and it's always worked wonders for me.
First, I gather all my crap...soap, rags, leaf blower, wax, clay, buckets, finish detailer, etc...
First I either start at very early morning as the sun is starting to come up or in the evening as it's on it's way down, whichever works best for my schedule that day. Also, ALWAYS make sure it's in the shade so I don't get damn waterspots. Steps as follows
1. Fill 1 bucket with soapy water and the other is a clean water rinse bucket
2. Wash car and de-tar/de-bug the car so I have a nice surface to start with
3. Clay bar the ENTIRE car(takes me about 4-6 hours)
4. Wash the entire car again making sure there's no clay residue left behind or anything I missed the first time around.
5. Turn on leaf blower and blow water off my car(never use towels of any variety, they cause swirl marks thus defeating the clay bar process alltogether. Yes, that includes microfiber towels as well)
6. Eagle 1 Nano wax 1x1 sections on the car at a time.
7. Go over entire car and make sure I didn't miss anything with the wax.
8. Once all is good, finish detailer to give it a realllll bright shine
9. I use w/e on windows and such
10. Take photos lol
Btw, I use w/e soap I can get my hands on but usually try to use the better stuff like meguiars. When I'm done with my car which is about a 6-8 hour process, you can read the serial number of a dollar bill about 2 feet away from my paint. So I think I do ok'ish