Following from the previous post, by Sheikh Tawfique, in which he details steps to developing good habits during this blessed month of Ramadan, I wanted to share with you a detailed way of developing any habit, pioneered by Productivity blogger, Mark Shead, called the Habit List.

You can read all about his method here, or even better, enroll to his e-mail course (found on the same page), in which he sends you an e-mail each day that helps you towards developing any habit.

The basic idea of the Habit List is as follows: you print this pre-formatted single A4 sheet (provided by Mark) which you write on it all the "habits" you want to develop (or stop doing) over a course of a month. Each day you perform the activity (or not do the activity) you give yourself a tick. At the end of the month, you'll have a visual understanding of how well you're keeping to developing a habit (or stopping a habit).

Although this sounds basic, but I found this to be highly effective. Give it a try, and let me know if it works for you.

Well, after my post yesterday, where I blasted the current weekend system as the most unproductive social invention, here are some tips to make these weekends slightly more productive:

• Plan them ahead of schedule. I usually try to plan my weekends from the beginning of the week so that I'm  fairly booked come the weekend. When people think of planning the weekend, they think of major projects or trips, but I'm saying that we should try to plan for the weekend even if you haven't got anything grande: plan when you'll do your laundry, plan your sleep and relaxation, plan time for recreational activities for your children, especially those that bring the whole family together (On the last point, remember Prophet Muhammad and how he used to go racing with Ayesha, how many families do that nowadays. I remember a brother who every week used to book a badminton court and play with his children and wife. Nowadays, even though the children are all grown up, they still keep to this weekly family ritual).
• Use weekends as a learning opportunity: You'd be amazed at the number of high-quality Islamic educational courses being organised during weekends. These range from Islamic law, Islamic finance, seerah courses, or tajweed courses. Scour the internet for some of these courses, and try to attend at least one of them every month or two, they'll truly be beneficial for you and your family. Also, you don't have to stick to only Islamic courses: take courses in anything that might benefit you, e.g. creative writing, critical thinking, cooking, arabic calligraphy..etc. If you can't find a course, contact an expert in the field and see if they'll be willing to teach you on a one-to-one basis.  
• Schedule time for the Community/Neighbour: Let the weekends be our time to give back to the community, whether that's running a Quran tahfeedh for children, or a dawah activity. Also, those of us living in the west, how many of us know our neighbours? Why can't we schedule some "tea-time" with our neighbours? We'll be performing our religious duty of maintaing good ties with neighbours and perhaps be a unique dawah opportunity.
• Adventure! Adventure! Adventure!: Whether it's a long walk in the English country-side, or visiting another city across your country's border. These mini vacations can have the same profound effect on you and family as a major vacation, and they cost-less!! (Also, it helps drive some spontaneity into family life: imagine, coming home one day and saying: Honey, I booked a trip to Istanbul, let's start packing!)

*cough* *cough* sorry, with a bad flu past few days, so running dry with ideas pretty quickly. Let me know what your thoughts are though, happy to read them in the comments. (Also, any of you know of good natural herbs to fight cold? I've lost hope in tablets).

One of the modern traditions which we've got so used to and never questioned is the end of the week holiday. Whether that is Saturday & Sunday to some, or Thursday & Friday to others, I don't know why, but I find these weekends to be the most unproductive social invention of the modern era.

I always wondered whether weekends have any historical significance. A quick search in Wikipedia (yes, I know, not the most reliable source but nevertheless) shows that what started off as a Jewish and Christian day off dedicated to God, soon became embodied in our modern-day weekend system, as days for leisure, entertainment (and religious dedication) for the modern worker post the industrial revolution.

The question here arises: what's the Islamic viewpoint of these weekend? Historically, under the Islamic empire, did we have weekends? I don't know the answer, but will be interesting to find out.

On another note, if you read Surat Al-Jummah (the Chapter of Friday) in the Holy Quran, Allah says:

O ye who believe! When the call is proclaimed to prayer on Friday (the Day of Assembly), hasten earnestly to the Remembrance of Allah, and leave off business (and traffic): That is best for you if ye but knew!    
And when the Prayer is finished, then may ye disperse through the land, and seek of the Bounty of Allah. and celebrate the Praises of Allah often (and without stint): that ye may prosper.

Hmmm.. did Allah tell us to take a day off? Nope. He said, go and seek the bountry of Allah. I'm not a mufassir but seek the bounties of your Lord sounds to me as go back and work. Allah knows best.

What does that mean? Muslims aren't allowed to have weekends? No, not necessarily... but imagine if the entire Ummah didn't have an official weekend system, and instead implemented what I saw being implemented in one of the Dawah centers I used to work in; They had a 7 day work-week, with each employer entitled to 1 day off during the week. Imagine, how productive this Ummah would be?!

Some of you might argue that this would make us more tired, hence unproductive. Moreover, when will we ever have the time to do our other errands, e.g. shopping, laundry, family time..etc? That's a fair point. With the current system in place, one cannot imagine life without weekends, but perhaps it's only a matter of putting our minds to it. Also, what if instead of having weekends, we save all these weekends for more frequent longer holidays. E.g. for every 1 month of work, we take a week off?! These are just ideas, feel free to discuss them in the comments section below.

Recently, more and more managers are realizing the damaging effects of the weekend system to the momentum of any business. By Friday afternoon every employer is lazing off and not completing their work waiting for the weekend to begin, we go into the weekend, and overkill it in our sleep, so that come Monday, we can barely wake up on time. Then Monday morning comes, and we need to remember where we left off at our work on Friday. Highly inefficient, don't you think?

This post might not change the current weekend system, but I hope it'll make us think on how we can implement a productive weekend system in our lives. (By the way, our religion has beautifully sorted the sleep bit for us, we have to wake up for fajr on weekends as well, hence maintain the same wake up time each morning of the week, which is very healthy.)

However, what we do during those 2 days to maintain a productive weekend? That's my next post inshaAllah...

With Ramadan just around the corner, a question always arises as to how we can maintain our productivity during Ramadan. ProductiveMuslim.com is suggesting a 2 fold answer:

1. Time Management 
   
2. Healthy Diet.

1.Time-Management

It's funny how our day to day plans go haywire once Ramadan starts; we can't do much during the day because we're hungry or have spent the previous night in the shopping malls or with friends for one of those "Ramadan nights". So we promise ourselves that we'll work in the evening. 

Evening comes, and we overkill it at iftar, that we can't move for at least 2 hours, and thanks to our "well-targeted" media, our 2 hour lay in is encouraged with the 20 must-see Ramadan series on TV. Before we know it,  we got to rush to the mosque, and after an hour or so of some spiritual food (or so we hope), some of us want to go shopping for next day's iftar (or for Eid even). The comes suhoor time and we have to sleep, ready for work fajr in the morning. And no work is done.

Sound familiar?

I know people who have a phobia against Ramadan, saying that during Ramadan they can't do anything! And I'm amazed at how far from the Sunnah we've drifted and ended up in such a mess.

Brothers and sisters, it's time for change. We've wasted enough Ramadans repeating the above scenario on a daily basis, and it must stop. With only a few days to Ramadan, let us draw a schedule that will maintain our productivity and keep us up to speed with our day to day work.

• Firstly, do all your Ramadan & Eid shopping BEFORE Ramadan starts, that's right, don't do it during ramadan, do it before Ramadan. Yes, I know how tempting those Ramadan Sales are, but for the sake of sanity and maintaining the Ramadan spirit, finish up all your shopping for Ramadan and Eid before Ramadan starts.
• Plan your iftars well in advance, know what you'll cook on each day and follow the health diet suggested below for a healthy and delicious Ramadan iftar experience.   
• Have suhoor before Fajr, NOT at mid-night. This will help you maintain your productivity levels throughout your working day, instead of your body craving for food by mid-afternoon.  
• Start working after fajr, remember the post about waking up for fajr and boosting productivity,  and remember how we said that Prophet Muhammad made dua that Allah blesses this Ummah in the early hours. So grasp these early hours, especially that you'll be energized with suhoor. (Your boss would be particularly impressed to see you achieve so much before the day even started! and perhaps he might offer you the opportunity to go home early when you're hungry and feel less productive in the later part of the day).
• Don't waste those 2 hours between iftar and taraweeh in front of the TV. Use them for quiet reading, e-mailing, or any productive activity.
• Plan your day the night before, so that you do at least 3 important tasks the next day. When you set yourself such goals, you'll be geared towards maintaining them regardless of how hungry you are.  
• At times when you feel particularly hungry or worn out, do mundane tasks that don't require much thinking, e.g. administrative tasks, cleaning, typing up information..etc.  

Finally, the MOST important Time Management advice for Ramadan is to make sure you schedule in time for Allah (SWT), remember, this is Ramadan, we sometimes forget in our day to day running of the virtue and benefit of this month. Don't waste it for worldly deeds unless it's crucial, I know of a brothers who saves his holidays so that he gets all of Ramadan off and spend it in the mosque praying, reading Quran, and remembering Allah. Don't be caught out at the end of Ramadan with regret that you haven't done much during Ramadan.

2. Healthy Diet

Where should I start with diet of the Muslims today during Ramadan? My local imam used to be bemused at watching families stock up for Ramadan, you would think a war or famine is coming and there'll be no food for at least 6 months! 

At home, a state of emergency is declared in the kitchen, and a long list of "Ramadan dishes" are drawn up for poor mom to cook. I say poor mom, because instead of her spending time reading Quran, praying, she's enslaved to cook for her ever-demanding husband and children. 

What about those of us who have iftar in the mosque? That's another issue. For some reason, some brothers/sisters who organize collective iftar (especially in Mosques) have this bad habit of laying out ALL the food before iftar time, hence in the 10 minutes between athan and iqama of maghreb, an unwritten food competition begins on who can swallow the most kebabs and samosas!!! That's all well and good, until prayer time starts, and you hear a symphony of burping brothers during salat! On the other hand, for those organisors who are reasonable enough to delay the main meal till after maghreb salaat, I urge you to look into the iftar you bring in daily to the brothers/sisters. Rice + Meat + Curry on a daily basis can get tiresome after a while, and you need to convince your donors not just to bring in variety, but to think of healthy alternatives as well. 

I came across an excellent article, by a Muslim Nutritionist on healthy diet during Ramadan. You can click here to read it. He describes a 3 meal diet during the non-fasting hours of the evening which will keep you healthy and productive during the Holy month of Ramadan.

Well, that's all from me about maintaing productivity during Ramadan. I hope this covers some of basic points that would keep us all productive during Ramadan. Feel free to comment, ask questions, and even suggest different ways of maintaining productivity during Ramadan. In the end, I wish you all a blessed and happy Ramadan. 

I read once that if you look at all the great men and women of history, there's one habit they all had in common: they all woke up early!

SubhanaAllah! Look how Allah is so kareem to us, and giving us this secret through a daily call of waking up for Fajr prayer! Brothers & Sisters, we're the Ummah of Productivity!! Seriously, if all of us actually wake up for fajr, and just stick to that, can you imagine how productive we'll be?

At those early hours, I find myself most productive, creative, and able to think clearly. You end up doing so much in those early hours, then the rest of the day put together. You want to know why? And this will make you cry, because our dear Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), made a beautiful dua for us, he said: "May Allah bless my Ummah in its early hours".

SubhanaAllah, this is it. If all of us don't take from this website except this advice, we're on our way towards a productive Ummah!

P.S. Next post I'll tackle how to actually wake up early for fajr, inshaAllah.