Well, as far as I know there is no easier way to achieve this if you only use the standard JDK.
You can, of course, put that logic in method2 into a static function in a helper class, like done here in the toBeginningOfTheDay-method
Then you can shorten the second method to:
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendars.toBeginningOfTheDay(cal);
dateWithoutTime = cal.getTime();
Or, if you really need the current day in this format so often, then you can just wrap it up in another static helper method, thereby making it a one-liner.