BEING PRODUCTIVE

MANAGEMENT & SELF DISCIPLINE IN ISLAM

SESSION 3

SUMMER 2013
Time Management
What happens when we disregard these
natural laws?

i.e. stay awake all night and

sleep all morning?
We crash!
Our system goes upside down
 1. Body out of sync: Physical & Psychological Illnesses
 By disregarding these rhythmic changes in nature and living against
these unspoken laws, the body and mind surely move out of sync
with one another. This is a leading cause of physical and mental
illness.
 Any deviation from the circadian rhythm causes abnormal
secretions of the hormones melatonin and serotonin.
 This hormonal imbalance, in turn, leads to erratic biological
rhythms, which can subsequently disrupt the harmonious
functioning of the entire organism, including the digestion of food,
cell metabolism and overall hormonal balance.
 Suddenly, we may feel “out of sync” or shaky and become
susceptible to developing an illness, which could include a simple
head cold, headache, depression or even a cancerous tumor.
 2. We start binging!
 Sleep through the morning: we don’t produce enough serotonin
 The brain then tries to temporarily get the extra serotonin it needs
through carbohydrates in sugars and starches.
 Carbohydrates also contain natural serotonin building blocks, and
when they are ingested, the pancreas releases insulin to break down
the sugars.
 This creates a ‘serotonin high’ for a few minutes until the serotonin
is depleted.
 Then the destructive cycle begins, causing one to crave more
carbohydrates and even go into uncontrollable eating binges.
3. Binging leads to obesity & lethargy
Spiritual Loss?
Loss of Barakah

Salah

Barakah

Salah
 Vicious Cycle
Weakness of
Intellect

Obstacles to No time for

Rizq work

Relationship No time for

problems ‘ibadah

Loss of
barakah
How to sleep early and not sleep
after fajar?
The Beauty of the Sunnah:
Qaylulah
 Qaylulah
‫ اﺳ�ﺘﻌﻴﻨﻮا ﺑﻄﻌﺎم اﻟﺴﺤﺮ �ﲆ ﺻﻴﺎم اﻟﻨﮭﺎر و � ﻟﻘیﻠﻮ� �ﲆ ﻗیﺎم‬: ‫ﻗﺎل رﺳﻮل ﷲ ﷺ‬
‫اﻟﻴﻞ‬
Seek help with the meal at suhur for fasting during the day, and (seek
help) with qaylulah for rising at night (for ibadah). (Ibn-e-Majah)
 Research behind Qaylulah
• The body immediately enters into REM (Rapid movement sleep) during
Qaylulah, which is why we wake up feeling extremely refreshed.

• Naturally feel sleepy at that time: our circadian rhythm dips and rises at
different times of the day, so adults' strongest sleep drive generally occurs
between 2:00-4:00 am and in the afternoon between 1:00-3:00 pm.
Research behind Qaylulah

Ustadha Sobia Moiz Hasan | Zaynab

Academy Online
 Benefits of Qaylulah
• Increased Alertness: A nap of 60 minutes improves alertness for up to 10
hours. A NASA study found that a 40 minute nap increases alertness by 100%.
Other studies have found that a 20 minute nap is more effective than either 200
mg of caffeine or a bout of exercise. Research on pilots shows that a 26
minute “Nasa” nap in flight (while the plane is manned by a copilot)
enhanced performance by 34% and overall alertness by 54%
 Qaylulah Facts
 Improves learning and working memory. Naps improve your working
memory. This type of memory is involved in working on complex tasks where
you have to pay attention to one thing while holding a bunch of other things in
your memory. Napping also improves your memory retention; during sleep,
recent memories are transferred to the neo-cortex, where long-term memories
are solidified and stored.
 Prevents burnout and reverses information overload. While we often refuse
to take a nap because we feel like we have too much to do, studies have shown
that putting in extra hours without rest dramatically reduces your
productivity. It would be better to take a 30 minute nap and return to your
work refreshed.
 Qaylulah Facts
 Heightens your senses and creativity. According to foremost nap scientist
Sara C. Mednick, napping can improve your sensory perception as effectively
as a night of sleep. Napping also improves your creativity by both loosening
up the web of ideas in your head and fusing disparate insights together.

 Improves health. Sleep deprivation leads to an excess of the hormone cortisol

in the body. Excess cortisol increases glucose intolerance and abdominal fat,
weakens the muscular and immune systems, stymies memory and learning,
and decreases levels of growth hormone and testosterone in our bodies. These
effects can lead to diabetes and heart disease.
 Qaylulah Facts
• Lower Rate of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD): A 2007 study of about
24,000 Greek people showed that those who napped twice a week reduced
their CHD by 12% and if they napped three times a week, their CHD
reduced by 37%.
Qaylulah Facts
 More facts
• Most mammals sleep for short periods during the day. Humans have
consolidated sleep into one long period, but our bodies are programmed
for two periods of intense sleepiness: from 2:00 Am to 4:00 AM and
between 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM

• Romans had a regular “siesta” (midday rest): it was considered to be a

physical necessity than a luxury.
 Famous People who Napped
• Winston Churchill: had to nap in order to maintain his war time
responsibilities.
• Napolean: napped between battles while sitting on his horse.
• Edison and Da Vinci napped.
• Einstein: napped frequently during the day to help him think better. He
would sit in his favorite arm chair with a pencil in his hand and purposely
doze off. He would wake when the pencil dropped, ensuring he did not
enter a deep sleep from which it would be difficult to wake up.
 Businesses that promote napping
• Nike workers now have access to nap-friendly “quiet rooms” that can also
be used for meditation.
• Google has a number of futuristic napping pods scattered through out its
mountain view campus.
• Continental and British Airways allow pilots to sleep during long
international flights while colleagues take over the controls.
 Qaylula High
Barakah
Lunch Energy Without
Energy Hours
Zuhr Hours Qaylula
Level
With
Qaylula

5 AM 1 PM 3 PM 11 PM
 Virtuous Cycle!
Barakah of
following the
Sunnah

Quiet hours in
Tahajjud &
the morning for
Ishraq | Dhikr &
concentrated
Ibadah
work

Day divided into Getting more work

2 parts done

More free time More healthy

Practical Steps to Improving Quality of Sleep
 Practical Tips: Sleeping early & rising early
1. Stick to a routine: Try going to bed at the same time every night,
including weekends. Regularity will help normalize our circadian
rhythm.
 Practical Tips: Sleeping early & rising early
2. Ensure our sleep is restful:
 Keep our room cool, about 16-18 degrees Celsius.

 Make our bedroom a haven for sleep by making it a place of

pleasure and rest, not stress and tension.

 Unwind and relax before going to bed. Write down stuff that’s got
us worried so we can deal with it in the morning.

 Sleep in a dark room. This is the most important advice since light
is such a powerful force that wakes our brain way before your alarm
clock goes off
 Practical Tips: Sleeping early & rising early
3. Let the sun shine during early morning hours

4. Have an early dinner

 Practical Tips: Sleeping early & rising early
5. Reduce intake of caffeine and soda:
 Caffeine stays in our system for 3 to 7 hours
 Caffeine is a diuretic: increased thirst and urination
 Soda: 20 minutes after having soda, our blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin
burst. Our liver responds to this by turning any sugar into fat.
 Practical Tips: Sleeping early & rising early
6. Regular Exercise
 Helps in the production of serotonin
Time Management
Time Management Principles from the Life of our beloved Prophet ‫ﷺ‬
1. Appreciation of the value of time and, consequently, making the best use of
every piece of available time.
2. The guidance of a mission, a set of values, and priorities in planning every
activity.
3. Establishment of a time policy or a time budget.
4. The scheduling and completion of activities within allocated time slots.
 Weekly Time Policy
 Monday: Seek knowledge
 Monday & Thursday: Fasting
 Friday: Day of festivity
 Wednesday: Ta’leem for women
 Daily Time Policy
Two types of activities occupied his time:
1. The spontaneous (un-programmed) activities: included giving an
audience to an envoy or a representative group, the meeting of an urgent
need, or helping a stranger who spontaneously sought help. Such activities
were accommodated within the time slots that were not dedicated to
programmed activities. Furthermore, if a representative body were to
arrive in Medina for a one-off meeting, then it would be scheduled at the
first available time. However, if the group was to stay in Medina for a while,
then the meetings with this group were included in the regular plan of
activities.
 Daily Time Policy
2. The regular (programmed) activities: Two aspects of the Prophet’s daily
schedule were:
(1) The same activities were scheduled in the same time period every day
(2) Each activity had a designated time limit.
 Night time of the Prophet (saw)
 One segment was dedicated to worship, one to his family and one
segment to his personal matters.

 At times, he is seen as giving his personal time to his community in

meeting with them and trying to address their needs.

 Amma Aisha (ra) reports that the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬used to sleep during
the early part of the night and wake up for worship during the later
part [Ibn-e- Majah]
 Daytime activities of the Prophet (saw)
 The Prophet ‫ﷺ‬prohibited his companions from sleeping after the
morning prayer.

 He used to stay at the mosque until sunrise and have group

conversations with his companions. The subjects of these
conversations were both religious as well as entertaining, for example,
poetry would be read or the dreams of the previous night would be
related. It is understood that these hours were spent in a felicitous
way, with companions laughing at times and the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬smiling.
(Muslim, Nasai)
 Daytime activities of the Prophet (saw)
 On days when he was not fasting, he would have breakfast during
this period.
 He is known to have eaten two meals each day, a late breakfast and a
dinner.
 Towards noon, he would take a nap and encourage others to do the
same
 After the noon prayers came the time for community matters
 The Asar prayer was followed by time for the family once again
 Perfect System: 5 daily prayers
 “Relieve us O Bilal!”- the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬would ask him to make the call
to salah
Practical Techniques of Time Management
 Step 1: Begin with the End in Mind
 The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬was Goal-Oriented
 Personal Mission Statement: Who do I want to be?
 Step 2: Prioritize
 Question 1: What one thing could you do, (you aren’t doing now) that if
you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference
in your life?
 Question 2: What one thing in your business or professional life would
bring similar results?
 Urgent: More visible, insist on action, right in front of us, we react to
them more easily
 Important: result-driven, require proactivity and initiative, a clear vision
of our goals
 Step 2: Prioritize

Covey, Stephen “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, pg 151

 Exercise
1. The first step is to list all the activities and projects that you feel you
have to do. Try to include everything that takes up your time at work,
however unimportant.
2. Next, on a scale of 1 to 5, assign importance to each of the activities.
Remember, this is a measure of how important the activity is in helping
you meet your goals and objectives. Try not to worry about urgency at
this stage.
3. Once you've assigned an importance value to each activity, evaluate its
urgency. As you do this, plot each item on the matrix according to the
values that you've given it.
4. Now schedule your priorities
 Where are we at fault?
1. Inability to prioritize
2. The inability or desire to organize around those priorities
3. The lack of discipline to execute around them
 How to Prioritize

Identifying
Roles Scheduling

Selecting Daily
Goals Adapting
 Assigning Roles
1. Servant of Allah swt
2. Mother
3. Wife
4. Daughter
5. Sister
6. Student of Knowledge
7. Teacher
8. Social Worker
Goals as Servant of Allah swt

Improve Khushu
in Salah

Remember Allah
swt through out
the Day

Be regular in
tahajjud salah

Eliminate back
biting from my
life
 Long Term Organizing

Mission
Roles Goals
Statement
 Weekly Organizing

Schedule
Roles Goals Plans
Design