Mufti Menk – Dealing with Difficulty #26 Time Management
AI: Summary ©
The speaker advises managing distractions and free time in one's busy lives to avoid stress and anxiety. They suggest using the Quran to manage time and advise against wasting time and distractions. The speaker emphasizes the benefits of praise of Allah for transformation and offers advice on how to deal with addiction to games and online activities. They also suggest listening to the 5-day prayers and rehearsing "verbal" and "immaterial." The speaker provides tips for dealing with this difficulty and mentions that God blesses them with time management.
AI: Summary ©
My brothers and sisters,
wasting time
has become a difficulty.
How to deal with it? We find ourselves
without much time. We're always busy. We always
have something. We don't have the time for
the right things. Well, the distractions
are so many. So if you want to
deal with the difficulty, you need to look
at the course and you need to see
why it has happened.
Why did the difficulty come about here? We're
talking of time management,
people who
don't have time
because they're wasting it. So the Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, tells us.
There are 2
gifts of Allah that many people take for
granted.
The first one is your health.
So when you lose your health, you realize,
oh, I should have done this and should
have done that when I was healthy.
The second one is
your free time, your spare time
or your time in general.
Al Farah
refers to the free time. But your time
where
when you're occupied truly, then you realize, oh
gosh, when I was free, I should have
done this and should have done that.
So Allah Almighty draws our attention to those
2 gifts. So free time is a gift
of Allah.
Are you just going to spend it on
the distractions of this world or do something
meaningful?
Number 1.
To deal with this difficulty, don't compromise your
5 daily prayers. You'll find Allah will help
you manage the time.
I'm going to give you a few tips.
The first one is your 5 daily prayers.
If you get up in the morning and
you really make sure you wash yourself and
pray to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala salatul Fajr,
Allah will bless your day with lots of
means blessings.
So there are unique blessings. One of them
is time management.
You have fajr, dhor, asr, maghrib, and isha.
You know the prayers right through the day.
You pray those prayers
and you make sure that you enjoy them,
even if it is only the bare minimum.
The fact that you've done that, Allah will
bless your day with regards to many things,
one of them is time management.
Similarly,
start your day with a portion of recitation
of the Quran.
Tip number 2. So if you've read a
portion of the Quran, even if it is
2 minutes, again,
the Quran Quran is a unique
gift of Allah, the Word of Allah
If you think you don't have time to
read the Quran, let me tell you one
of the miracles of the Quran that you
may not have realized
is
that
when you sit to read the Quran,
it makes
the time for you in a miraculous way.
Try it out. It's amazing.
That means if you think you don't have
the time and you stop what ever you're
doing and you spend a moment with the
Quran, you will have the time.
You won't realize that, you know what? Wow.
I thought I didn't have the time. Where
did this time come from?
Because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is the one
who gives blessings.
Allah is the one you spent time with
Allah. Allah says we won't let you down.
You can never have wasted
a time that you've spent with Allah
in prayer. The 5 daily prayers, the recitation
of the Quran.
So those two things will help you manage
your time. The problem with us is
the distractions of today are many. The biggest
of these distractions is social media. Unfortunately, we've
talked about it quite a bit, but that's
because it dominates our lives. Let's face it.
So with us on our phones and our
devices,
we actually lose track of time to the
degree that an hour passes, 2 hours pass,
and we're still there. And people come and
go, and we're still there. And people come
back and go back and we're still there.
And what happened to your prayer? You lost
track of it. That's why you don't have
the time management. Put an alarm on your
phone. Let it cut off and switch off.
Switch the phone off, switch on your connection
with Allah. But if you switch on your
phone, do not disconnect with Allah.
The Quran,
you do something good on your phone. And
the third tip is
the remembrance of Allah.
Keep your tongue moistened
with the remembrance of Allah. What is the
remembrance of Allah? Well, it's a very broad
words,
Meaning these are very broad words, broad sentence.
The remembrance
of Allah.
Any good word is the remembrance of Allah.
The 5 daily prayers are a remembrance of
Allah. Recitation of the Quran is a remembrance
of Allah. But generally when we say Dhikr
and we've already spoken about those 2 things,
then it's referring to words of praise of
Allah.
Subhanallah.
Praise be to Allah. Alhamdulillah.
Praise be to Allah.
La ilaha illallah. None worthy of worship besides
Allah. Allahu Akbar Allah is the greatest,
and so on. Glory be to Allah. Praise
be to Allah. There is none worthy of
worship besides Allah. And there is no might
besides that of Allah,
and no power besides that of Allah.
Allah is the greatest.
So when you moisten your tongue, even subhanallah,
subhanallah, subhanallah, and you repeat these words,
these words are blessed.
Allah blesses you with so much that
what you see, what you do, what you
say,
everything
is actually
transformed
into a beautiful,
beautiful
act of worship.
SubhanAllah,
you become conscious of so many other things
and automatically
Allah will help you stay away from that
which is displeasing to him. Imagine a person
who is conscious about their prayer,
started the morning with the Quran,
remembers Allah. Do you really think that they're
going to fall straight into major sin?
I'd like to think if they were genuine
about all of this, then this would not
actually happen. Because
Allah will not allow the 2 to come
together
in the heart of a true believer,
something which is
stark contrast.
Allah blesses you with time management.
You're able to manage your time.
The daily prayers,
the recitation of the Quran,
the remembrance of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and not wasting your time with the distractions.
Identify the distractions.
Some people sit late at night and they
don't realize their friends
or whatever they're busy with sitting late at
night, even games.
People play
games.
And the addiction to games, as far as
a few studies that I've read, is similar
to the addiction to *.
You can read it. I've read so much.
I'm convinced by it, and I do believe
that
that requires help.
You need someone who's an expert at dealing
with behavioral addictions to help you come out
of it.
Because to be honest with you, people are
addicted to games in in an even bigger
way than they would be addicted to *
because they see nothing wrong with it. Yes.
The one might be
outside the values and morals of a believer.
This one here you might argue is in
the values and morals. But
the fact that you're addicted is what would
actually make you a cabbage.
It would make you a cabbage because
you lose everyone
and everything
around you over time and you blame them
for it.
You don't know you're an addict. That's what
it is. You need help. You must reach
out for help. So gaming has become a
problem. You lose track of time. Today we're
talking about time management.
You set aside a time. I'm going to
play a game if I really have to,
Alhamdulillah,
if it's not Haram like the other stuff,
but it needs to be within a limit.
I need to go to bed early in
order to get up early, in order to
have a blessed day ahead.
But no, you're up all night. And what
you're going to do all day? Sleepy.
You're going to be upset. You're going to
be emotional. You're going to get cross.
You're gonna start yelling and shouting at the
people who you live with. You're gonna be
on edge all the time. Be it children,
be it spouse, be it parents, whoever it
may be, Be it those you work with
or work for and so on or those
who work for you. And you're not a
nice person
because
your time management.
Similarly, your health is affected because of the
time and so many other things
that you would not realize
are actually damaged because you haven't managed your
time. So Allah tells you be disciplined, fulfill
your prayers, do whatever you have to sleep
on time. That's another tip. Sleep on time.
Push yourself to sleep on time. Initially, it
won't be easy. You'll toss and turn because
you're not used to going to bed early.
Go to bed early. It's a sunnah, and
a sunnah will bring about so much of
goodness. You'll get up early as well, but
push yourself to go to bed early. Come
what may and see how Allah blesses you.
So these are some of the ways of
dealing with this difficulty of time management.
May Allah Almighty grant us
blessed days in his obedience. When we have
fun, let it be limited to a specific
time that is not going to come in
the way of us and duties and obligations
we have. And may Allah Almighty grant us
all goodness.