It’s 8am. You're fresh out of bed, dressed, and ready to start your day. You sit down at
your desk, open your laptop, and... stare at your screen. You’ve got a long list of goals
you’ve put together, you’ve got the energy, but here you are… not even sure what to do or how
to start. We’ve all been here before. And in fact, we might find ourselves here very often.
But rest assured, there’s a simple solution. It’s called “block-scheduling.”
Basically, what it means is that at the start of every week or even the night before,
you plan out your day, hour by hour. I know this sounds intimidating at first, but I promise it’s
not as intense as you think. Essentially, you’re creating a skeleton for your day.
Say for example, you sat down every Sunday night to think about all of the goals and
tasks you need to accomplish that week. You’ll take a pen and paper, or open up the Notes app
on your phone or laptop, and do a brain dump of everything you need to get done.
Then, once you’ve identified what you need to do and you have prioritized each task,
write down which day or days of the week you will work on each task. For a simple example, your day
could look like this. You block off 8am-10am to work on a long-term project that requires
your full attention. 10am-12pm is reserved for catching up on class or work-related readings.
12pm-1pm you’ve got a lunch and salah break. 1-3pm you’re back at it in class or work calls.
And so on and so forth. Oh and this goes into the evening as well. You block off time for dinner
prep and eating, as well getting in personal habits like working out and memorizing Quran.
The idea is that you plan out your day beforehand so that once your day begins,
you don’t waste time worrying about everything you have to do and all of the time it’ll take.
Think about how often that happens. You’ve got 101 tasks on your plate, you start your day,
but because you don’t have anything specific planned, you spend 10, 20, 30 minutes debating
which task seems less daunting and which tasks to procrastinate. And then when you’ve finally begun,
once you’ve finished one agenda item, rather than have a specific next task ready, well...we do what
most people do today: grab our phones and start scrolling through texts or social media. Before we
know it, 30 minutes to an hour have gone by, and you’re still unsure as to what you’ll get to next.
Block-scheduling is an extremely effective tool to not only keep you on track of all of your tasks,
but to also hold you accountable throughout the day. If you’ve
allotted a whole block to getting through a task you’ve been avoiding,
procrastinating becomes that much harder. And once you’re done with your initial goal,
you know what exactly you’re moving on to without finding excuses to waste time.
And while it might be hard and overwhelming for the first few days, weeks, and maybe even months,
with time, you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll have saved so much time once you do,
it will be worth all of the effort you put in. What I find most incredible and empowering about
block-scheduling is that it is inherently built in to the life of a Muslim. Praying five times a day,
throughout the day, is one of the key pillars in Islam. And what salah does to us in particular,
is that it makes us very much aware of what we’re doing and where we’re going to be
throughout the day so we can plan accordingly. When I was a full-time student, for example,
I always had to think about when I would schedule certain classes like lengthy chem labs or
extracurricular activities to make sure I would have the time and be in a place where I knew I
could pray. And as I grew older, I found myself planning my day around salah. In other words,
I was blocking off time in my day to pray. And soon, I slowly began to just plan everything
else around those blocks. Before I knew it, I was an expert block-scheduler thanks to salah.
It is incredibly powerful to acknowledge how block-scheduling has become a popular tool
today often promoted by self-help gurus or just regular individuals reflecting on their
productive habits. And yet, here I am, as a Muslim who is programmed at a young age
to think of my day in the same manner to prioritize what is most important in my life.
And just like that, my Muslim identity has set me up, yet again, for success.