The major problem of Ramadan... How do you organize your time effectively between worship, learning and work?

We usually welcome Ramadan with many plans, and as the month ends, we realize that we have not been able to carry out our plans;

What makes us fall into the same confusion every year when the holy month approaches, and we fear that we will miss 30 days without achieving a benefit or building a habit or even committing to carrying out our usual tasks, and while this month carries a challenge that is fasting for long hours during the day, this does not constitute an obstacle to Carrying out tasks, in fact, the real obstacles are some of the behaviors that should be avoided to ensure that we stick to our plans and achieve what we want, while combining worship with life tasks at the same time.

Not planning in advance

Time management is based on two main elements: planning and implementation. This is confirmed by Ismail Kamdar, the author of the book “Taking Blessings: An Islamic Guide to Time Management” (1). According to him, poor planning for the holy month will add another wasted Ramadan to your time list The first step to start this planning is to define your religious goals in this month, in addition to your other goals related to work, study, or even reading and self-learning. It is preferable to plan the month before it begins, to facilitate your commitment to the plan. It is also recommended to review your plan every night;

You may need some adjustments depending on your emergency circumstances.

When making the plan, the author advises limiting the time spent on tasks that you must perform during this month, such as family responsibilities, work, rest and sleep, as well as the times allotted for worship.

A person should be realistic about his plan, not planning something that he will not find enough time to implement during the month.

The author illustrates this with an example: If you need 7 hours to sleep, 7 hours for a job or study, and 3 hours for family responsibilities such as caring for children or caring for a sick person, by subtracting the sum of these hours from your day, you will have 7 hours left from the 24 hours a day, but wait, You can't say you have 6 hours to worship, there's time you'll need to commute back and forth to study, work or other responsibilities, time to prepare food (suhoor and iftar), time to eat, time to devote to other tasks, you can recalculate what's left Then allocate it to perform worship, and remember that this time is in one day, and if you can stick to that throughout the month, you will accomplish a lot.

Lack of clarity about goals

After determining the time required for the responsibilities to be accomplished, you should set clear goals to achieve them with regard to these responsibilities.

In this context, Ismail Kamdar gives an example: I want to finish studying a book of interpretation consisting of 800 pages during the month of Ramadan, and to achieve this I have to distribute the number of pages over the number of days of the month, and then I have to read 28 pages per day.

It becomes clear that the goal is specific, and it is a book whose name and number of pages are known, and this should be done when determining any goal. It does not require more than one hour per day, which is a time that can be saved.

Knowing the time that a person has daily to perform his goals is - then - important to achieve them, so based on the time available, the time allotted to accomplish each goal can be determined.

Missing to-do list

The goals set by the person can be divided into multiple tasks. For example, if the goal is to write a scientific article, its implementation requires the completion of several tasks, such as writing the structure of the article, determining its goals, completing the research process, reading the available knowledge sources, determining the useful ones, arranging and analyzing information, Writing the article, reviewing it, and proofreading it.

These tasks require determining the time required to perform each of them, and then the tasks can be added to the schedule of the month and the schedule of days allotted to work on these tasks.

Here, Ismail Kamdar advises to avoid multitasking during one time, meaning that a person should focus on performing one task during a specific time, which helps him to maintain his focus to perform the task and complete it faster and with greater quality, for example, if you want to read a group of scientific articles within an hour So, dedicate this hour to reading articles only, and after the time allotted for this task is over, you can move on to another task.

focus problem

Some tasks require more concentration than others, so it is recommended to perform tasks that require more focus and effort at the time when you are more focused and energy, and then leave the less stressful tasks for the times when you do not feel much focus (2), for example, you can study while enjoying Be active, and put off cleaning the room or shopping to get groceries for when you're not fully focused.

These times of activity differ from one person to another and also vary according to the time and place. While some advise to take advantage of the early morning hours to perform difficult tasks in normal times, this matter varies in Ramadan, and also varies from one country to another according to the prayer times in it, and until the arrival of the holy month, For example, the arrival of Ramadan in the winter when the night is long, means that you will be able to sleep at night and allocate enough time of the night to worship and perform some tasks.

During the summer or in countries where the night is very short, you may not be able to perform many tasks during the night, so your active hours may be after dawn or after breakfast (3).

Tasks should also be distributed according to their importance and the need to complete them within a specific time, so you can start with the important and urgent tasks, then the non-urgent task, then the non-important but urgent tasks, and delay the non-urgent and non-important tasks.

You can arrange your tasks in a table in order of their priority (4).

Scattered or interrupted tasks

You can accomplish some tasks in a different way that does not consume a lot of time, for example, if you can accomplish a task remotely, do so (5), such as replacing shopping for groceries in favor of electronic shopping, as it will save you the time you consume in transportation, collecting foodstuffs and waiting for payment, some Stores offer very low delivery prices at different times during the day or if your order is not urgent, you can take advantage of this opportunity, as well as you can complete other tasks such as business meetings also via the Internet and invest the time usually wasted in performing some acts of worship such as dhikr and reviewing the memorization of the Qur’an.

If you have a long list of office chores, here is a tip you can apply to get these chores done, which is to deal with your tasks in one of four ways: Postponing the task, delegating it to someone else, doing it right away, or even canceling it if possible, and this helps you achieve Results for the tasks that are most important to you (6).

It is also recommended to reduce real and virtual social contact, specifically excessive and unimportant communication.

By reviewing your social activities, you may find some activities that you can not participate in, such as browsing social networking sites for a long time, or even participating in unimportant social visits and meetings (7).

If you're not waiting for an urgent call, you can put your phone on silent mode, or avoid checking social media, chasing notifications, and responding to comments and incoming messages.

If you are skeptical about the importance of this, just check your phone settings to see how much time you spend on the phone each day, and think about whether you spent that time doing your current tasks (8).

Another thing to keep in mind when performing tasks is that you have to be prepared for surprises or unplanned changes that could affect your plan (9), for example, an urgent matter such as someone in your family getting sick, or a good thing that requires you to participate in the celebration, or a task New work, or otherwise, can affect your plan and the time you set for other tasks, so you should expect that and be flexible to deal with it, for example, if you have to cancel a task, you can deal with it in one of the four ways we mentioned: to perform it after the change is over, or postpone it until another time, or ask someone else to perform it for you, or cancel it.

lazy life

A healthy lifestyle is your first source of strength to achieve all the tasks that you have added in your plan, specifically with regard to sleep and nutrition, as any of them will be negatively affected and will hinder your performance of your tasks, so it is recommended to allocate enough time to sleep, and choose the appropriate time for that, which is the hours of the night, in addition to getting a nap. During the afternoon, which helps to regain activity and complete the tasks of the day better, and if you suffer from any problems in your sleep, it is recommended to see your doctor to help you improve your sleep (10).

Care should also be taken to follow a diet that helps you maintain a good level of energy during the day, so it is advised to avoid fried foods and sugars, and to drink sufficient amounts of water to maintain body moisture and avoid feeling lethargic, lazy or tired, and you can also consult your doctor about the preferred type of food To maintain your health, as well as the type of sports you can practice during fasting and the appropriate times.

In the end, the month of Ramadan is an opportunity to create new habits and to accustom oneself to discipline and commitment to the tasks that must be performed, even after the end of the month.

All that is required is a little advance planning and flexibility in dealing with developments, with a lot of determination and determination to achieve your goals, and exit the holy month with a face other than the one you entered into.

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