Balance: Scheduling your time in Ramadan
Mum Loves Me is an excellent Canadian website with lots of resources for parents including online seminars and discussions.
With Ramadaan only days away, they published this article:
Scheduling your time in Ramadan
During Ramadan the demands on your time are increased. Between chores, family, kids, and cooking, your time can easily get mismanaged. In some parts of the world the days of fasting are extremely long. For a mother who is fasting it is easy to end up feeling drained and exhausted if you do not put in place a proper schedule. If there is one time of the year you should have a schedule for it’s for the month of Ramadan. Having a schedule insures that you will not miss out on the blessings of this month. Obviously being a mother and having such responsibilities does not allow you to do everything you want to do during Ramadan but setting priorities and striving hard will make a difference.
In Ramadan, everyone is always making the extra effort to do something, whether it is waking up for tahajjud everyday, going for taraweeh regularly even though they have work the next morning, finding the extra time to read Quran and the list goes on. While you may not able to do some of the things listed you need to look at yourself as an individual and see what is your capacity and how much effort you are able to put forth in striving to worship Allah. So you might wake up earlier than usual, stay up later than usual, shift some duties around, whatever it is that works for you, you need to put in that extra effort. Not everyone achieves the same goals during Ramadan, but one thing for sure is that everyone is doing more than they usually would on a regular basis outside Ramadan.
You should also take advantage of the acts of worship that are easily forgotten. Spend the time you are preparing dinner in dhikr to Allah (swt). Play Quran while you fold the laundry and recite a long. Prepare a little extra food and give it to a family that is not as well off. Teach your children about the blessings of Ramadan. Discuss a hadith a day as a family and strive to implement it together. Work on manners and lead by example. There is reward to be found in almost everything we do each day. Even if you are not able to do what you did before having children find comfort in the acts of worship that we usually deem as “small”. For small and consistent adds up quickly.
Taking this into consideration, you must plan out a tentative schedule for yourself which involves all aspects that affect you daily. Once you put things into perspective, then only will you be able work towards your goals which you have set up for Ramadan. It’s easy to feel that spiritual disconnect when you have other duties to attend to and children to look after. But remember, that if you did something consistently and are unable to do due to a particular reason, then you are still rewarded for the deed as if you are still doing it. Isn’t that just awesome?! So remember it’s not necessarily about how much you can do, but how much you are striving to do to maximize on the rewards of this blessed month.
The question now is: How will you schedule your time?
Source: Mum Loves Me
