Friday 25 July 2008

Escape

When your life's a mess, you feel yourself being pulled this way and that, you have more tasks to do than time to do it and no time for that which you love, what do you do?

9 comments:

adil said...

Answer: pack a mus'haf (copy of the Qur'an), head for the mountains, ponder and return a refocused, re-prioritised man, walhamdulillah.

Anonymous said...

Get things done as they need to be, set limits to work towards before prayerand look forward to the prayers as a break (where the heart can be poured out to someone who cares).

adil said...

Problem is, work seems to find its way into my head during prayers! Any advice on how to leave work at work away from prayer?

Anonymous said...

Remembering that you are not working for your own gains you are working with the ultimate aims of pleasing Alah using the blessing he has given you. Include dua about your work in prayer and then remember there is more to life and you, than work.

Also someone once told me before you start imagine that jannah is on your right and juhanam on your left and you are on the surat and remember that Allah can see. Allahu a3lam, we will never be perfect but we can try towards it insha Allah. Good luck, make dua for me :) as well.

adil said...

maa sha Allah. jazaak Allahu khairan.

A couple of Du'as that I came across very recently and which I fell in love with so instantly that I added them to the select few Du'as on the inside cover of my pocket mushaf (copy of the Qur'an):

"O Allah, help me in Your remembrance, Your thanks, and in perfecting your prescribed worship."

"O Allah, I beg of You Your love and the love of those who love You and I ask of You such deeds which will bring me your love."

Eloquence of the highest order maa sha Allah. Recommended book: 'Reflections of Pearls' by Inam Uddin & Abdur-Rahman Ibn Yusuf.

Anonymous said...

I've come back from some leadership training and thought I'd add some information that might be of some use. As people there are four types of tasks we generally need to do 'important and urgent' 'not important and urgent' 'not important and not urgent' 'not important and not urgent' and generally our time is taken up by those things that appear urgent and we miss out on the 'important and not urgent' section...to work smarter with the time we have is the key. We need to prioritise our targets and try to minimise those tasks that are 'not important and urgent' as well as the 'not important and not urgent' to make way for the rest. Also making lists (as you've mentioned you already do), is a key motivator but we were advised not to make our lists longer than 5 or alternatively to go through the list we have and prioritise in 1s, 2s etc.

adil said...

"Lists not longer than 5"... I have at least 5 lists... each longer than 5!!!

I need to learn to say "No". "No I cannot do that. Sorry." "No I will not do that."

Disappointing someone by not taking on their request is bad but less so than taking it on and failing to deliver... or the mental anguish of having multiple sub- (sub-) sectioned/prioritised "to do" lists.

I like the distinction of "urgent" and "important". Nice... but that ultimately means allowing some tasks to go undone, right?

Anonymous said...

Isn't that the case already? I'm at the stage where I am too afraid to say yes. I'd rather say I will try or no.

I'm starting fresh insha Allah. I'm going to cut the not urgent and not important TV out of my life, insha Allah.

adil said...

Came across this concept of urgency and importance last week in 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People'. Easy to understand, difficult to implement. I would definitely advise cutting random TV and internet browsing.