Time Management for Ramadan Success

It is the holy month of blessings where Muslims fast, pray, recite the Holy Quran, and give zakat to the needy. 

Routine in the month of Ramadan is somewhat different than our usual routines and management of time in Ramadan also requires a bit of effort and hard work. It is not necessary to make management of time in Ramadan a difficult thing. We can always make effective planners, try anxiety-reducing techniques, and manage workload and Ramadan duties. Some of the main reasons we might not be able to manage time, especially in the month of Ramadan might include laziness, lack of proper nutrition, lack of sleep, poor management, and procrastination of the priorities by being involved in useless distractions. Here are a few tips through which we all can manage our routines and time and prioritize our tasks in the month of Ramadan.

Effective Schedule Planning

The best practice for Ramadan planning is to start making clear and precise goals and checklists before the month of Ramadan so that we have a clear perspective of what and how we are going to achieve. If we can manage our routine in Ramadan without making any schedules then that is good enough but for the Muslim individuals who find it difficult to manage can always make planners and schedules. Making checklists and goals helps an individual to prioritize their tasks, we should know how to make it effective and doable. We must avoid multitasking and make small and doable tasks within our reach. Making the schedule and not being able to follow it would make it useless. Firstly we should prioritize what is important according to our ease. Making wudu, praying salah, suhoor, iftar, workload, recitation of the Holy Quran, other Ramadan and religious duties, and sleep, all of these must be scheduled and prioritized accordingly. Our prayers require time and focus hence we should prioritize them in the first place especially because this is the month of blessings. Other than that our health should not be compromised, we must focus on the time required for eating peacefully at the time of suhoor and iftar. Meal preparation also takes time, including what and how to cook the meals. A sleep schedule is just as important to make sure you stay awake and conscious. Managing workload or your school work if you are a student, we can make a planner that suits us accordingly. We can also set deadlines for our tasks to make ourselves alert about the amount of time we have left for a specific goal or task. Hence this way we can manage our time effectively for a successful month of Ramadan. 

Avoiding Multitasking

Sure we can all learn to make a proper schedule somehow but following that schedule makes it a problem for most people. The first way we can start by following our schedule is to avoid writing multiple tasks at one time. In this way, you probably won't get anything done. So it's better to do something rather than getting frustrated and doing nothing. We need to avoid multitasking during Ramadan for example we can manage our ibadah at a certain time of the day when we feel relaxed and active. Next, we can manage our other tasks or workload when we are free and do not have other commitments. In this way, we need to make sure to break our schedule into small steps and make the checklist doable and manageable. 

Take Advantage of the Early Morning Hours

We all have heard the phrase “the early bird catches the worm”. This is proven to be true because most of the human's productivity lies in the early hours of the day rather than at any other time. This is Islamically and scientifically true. In terms of Ramadan, we can always use the early morning hours after suhoor to finish any tasks that we think we might not be able to get done at any other time of the day. This is because we are mostly active after suhoor time and we have slept through the night. This makes the early hours best for productivity either in terms of ibadah or other pending tasks in our schedules.