Generally speaking, procrastination is the direct result of being unproductive. In simple terms, productivity means to get things done while the former means the complete opposite. The more productive your life will be, the less you’ll be worried about procrastination and wasting your time. Procrastination prevents you from reaching your potential and getting the sense of fulfillment you so longingly desire. Today, you’ll learn how to increase productivity and remove the type of procrastination that prevents you from attaining your goals.
There are a number of ways to increase productivity, but today we’ll focus on one: the importance of planning ahead. You’ll learn how the simple act of planning things in advance will increase your productivity significantly. And like I do with all my articles, I’ll prove the significance and importance of planning in advance using deen.
Planning For Ramadan Starts From Rajab
The significance of Ramadan can not be overstated. It is the holiest of the months in the Islamic calendar. A month of fasting, reciting the Quran, continuous worship, and prayers. It is a month where Muslims from all across the globe unite too fast. Mosques throughout the world host the night prayer called Taraweeh. During Ramadan, there is a sense of increased devotion and awareness amongst all the Muslims. This sense of increased devotion is fitting for Ramadan as all deeds are increased exponentially in reward. Pray one supplementary prayer and get the reward of praying one obligatory prayer. And if you pray one obligatory prayer, you get the reward of having prayed 70 obligatory prayers. The month of Ramadan is also coined as the month of the Quran, as the Quran was revealed in it. Hence, Muslims worldwide attempt to complete the recitation of the Quran at least once, while some aspire to complete its recitation multiple times.
With all these added benefits for the month of Ramadan, it’s natural that Muslims be in their finest state of mind in order to reap the benefits. The pain of witnessing Ramadan and not benefitting from its virtues can only be understood when you truly see what you’ve missed out on. Rasulullah ﷺ knew exactly how he could make the Ramadan experience the greatest. He preached that you should prepare for Ramadan starting from the month of Rajab (which is 2 months prior to Ramadan). This is important to point out because Ramadan holds great value and it’s important that you be in the best shape to benefit from it. And in order for you to be in the best shape, you have to plan beforehand and start the preparation ahead of time.
The Wisdom of Planning Ahead
Your ability to think and plan is your biggest weapon against procrastination. Hence, Rasulullah ﷺ alluded that planning for Ramadan should begin two months prior, so when Ramadan arrives, that illustrious month is not spent in procrastination.
With that being said, there must be some wisdom (hikmah) to planning in advance. If Rasulullah ﷺ encouraged us to plan for Ramadan two months in advance, there must be some wisdom behind it. As human beings, we’re hungry for a profitable return on investment (ROI). This may be with respect to wealth but it also holds true with respect to time. If you spend 1$ on an investment you’d like to have a profitable ROI. This should hold true for your time also, but for some reason, we don’t think about ROI when we think of time allocation. Wouldn’t it be resourceful if you could spend one minute wisely performing a task instead of a dozen aimlessly attempting the same? That’s exactly what you get when you’re planning ahead. Your one minute of planning will save you over 10 minutes of execution. Talk about return on investment. It takes a dozen minutes to plan but that time will save you hours spent in diffused effort throughout the day.
Another important wisdom of planning is the 10/90 rule. The rule states that if you spend 10 percent of your allocated time in planning and organizing your work then you’ll reduce the time required to complete the task by 90 percent. This is the wisdom of planning ahead. The 6P formula is an acronym to remind you of this teaching. Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Write it down somewhere you’ll see every day.
How To Plan
Now that the significance of planning is discussed, it’s time to discuss how to plan productively. There are many methods to approach this, but this article will focus on one. Writing things down. You should write down tasks that you have to complete in order of priority. The better your list, the better your chances of eliminating procrastination. You should lay out your plan visually, with a series of boxes and check marks on a sheet of paper. As you go through each action you check them off of your list.
Once you have it all down, you take action and you do so immediately. A mediocre plan vigorously executed is better than a brilliant plan which is half-heartedly attempted. Execution is everything. You must be familiar with the question: how to eat an elephant? Answer: one piece at a time. Your project/task may seem overwhelming at first, but you must break it down to one step at a time. List it down. Visualize it.
Planning is simple. All it requires is a piece of paper and a pen. Jot down everything you have to accomplish before you begin your tasks. Once you do this, your job will be done faster than you thought. The action of checking things gives you a sense of accomplishment, a sense of self-respect. This is one of the best ways to overcome procrastination because once you have a list you’re working with, your actions are not vague. They’re well thought out. And also, now you’ve invested time in making a proper list, therefore naturally you wouldn’t want your investment to fail. Would you?
Creating A List
Although most people tend to create a daily to-do list there are multiple lists one can create in order to facilitate the execution of long-term and short-term goals. The more time you take to write your list the more effective it’ll be, and the more productive you’ll be. You should organize your list in the four following ways.
- Master list
The master list consists of everything you want to accomplish sometime in the future. All your long-term goals.
- Monthly list
Create this at the end of the month for the coming month. Items may be transferred from your master list to your monthly list.
- Weekly list
Plan your entire week in advance. This list is under construction as the week progresses and can take a few hours to write out.
- Daily list
Last is your daily list. As you work through your day, tick off the things you accomplish. Believe it or not, this simple act of ticking chores off your list will give you a sense of accomplishment and success. It will motivate you to keep moving forward and raise your self-esteem and self-respect. The main thing here is the steady progress that helps you move past procrastination.
Begin today to plan every day!
Muhammad Ibn Jarir At-Tabariؒ
At this point, I would like to share with you a fascinating routine of the famous historian Muhammad Ibn Jarir At-Tabariؒ. His magnum opus (Tafseer At-Tabari) is one of the highly respected exegesis (Tafseer) of the Quran.
It is mentioned that he wrote 80 pages every day for 40 years. Can you imagine 40 years of writing daily? The amount of consistency that this highly revered man had is unimaginable. The amount of dedication required to pull such a feat is astonishing, to say the least.
Although we don’t know his daily routine and habits, we can deduce that he was dedicated to his tasks and had some organization and planning to his day. While writing 80 pages in one day may seem a daunting task (and don’t get me wrong, it is), it gets significantly easier to complete once you apply the “one bite a time” rule. Suppose he writes 20 pages in each sitting, then he only needs to sit 4 times a day to write 80 pages. Now that is more of an easier pill to swallow.
Apply this rule in your life and you’ll see how a daunting task can be completed with the right mindset and planning. And once you do succeed, you won’t even believe that you could’ve pulled off such a feat. You only need to see it through once to prove to yourself how it could work wonders for you.
Another Saying of Rasulullah ﷺ
Why am I putting so much emphasis on planning and making a list? Did Rasulullah ﷺ advocate planning, did he put an emphasis on it? Well, if preparing for Ramadan two months prior is not enough indication then there is another hadith I can reference. This narration will prove that Rasulullah ﷺ talked about productivity centuries ago. Abu Dardaؓ asked Rasulullah ﷺ for advice, amongst other advice, and Rasulullah ﷺ said: there is no intelligence like astute planning.
These are the words of the last messenger. No intelligence like astute planning. In other words, you’re as intelligent as your plans. The clearer the plan, the clearer the execution. The pinnacle of intelligence is planning. Plan things right. Spend time planning. Because if you’re intelligent you’ll save 90 percent of your time in execution by spending 10 percent of your time in planning.