I think ... - muslimhttps://blog.kmonsoor.com/2016-05-10T00:00:00+06:00A Near-Perfect Day of a Muslim Professional2016-05-10T00:00:00+06:002016-05-10T00:00:00+06:00Khaled Monsoortag:blog.kmonsoor.com,2016-05-10:/a-near-perfect-day-of-a-muslim-Professional/<p>Each of our decisions make or break the path for the next opportunity or disaster. Be it for our worldly life or the&nbsp;life-after.</p><p>Life is all about the choices we make. We go through new experiences every single day. Each of our decisions make or break the path for the next opportunity or disaster. Be it for our worldly life or the&nbsp;life-after.</p> <p>As a somewhat-practicing Muslim guy, who happened to be a software engineer, I feel that my schedule or planning of daily life or work cannot be the same of a non-practicing colleague whose life-plan is somewhat undefined. Just&nbsp;can&rsquo;t.</p> <p>So, in light of my current understanding of Islam, and the sunnah of Muhammad (ﷺ: peace be upon him), as well as all my gathered life-hacks, I planned to design a optimal timeline or schedule of my 24H daily life which enhances both my dun&rsquo;yaa and akhiraat fulfilling all my physical <span class="amp">&amp;</span> spiritual needs. This also should boost your career, nonetheless, due to cutting out the slack and distractions from our working&nbsp;time.</p> <h4 id="please-note">Please note<a class="headerlink" href="#please-note" title="Permanent link">&para;</a></h4> <ul> <li> <p>Though this is designed keeping Muslim values in center, readers from any other religions or beliefs can benefit from this schedule as well.<br> Just replace Islam-specific mentions(prayer, dua, salat, tilawaat, tahajjud, prayer etc.) with your spiritual activities or self-realization related engagement, just remember to keep your gadgets&nbsp;away.</p> </li> <li> <p>People from other professions can also benefit from this, but may or may not require some his domain-specific&nbsp;tuning.</p> </li> <li>Though I used the terms &ldquo;he&rdquo;, &ldquo;him&rdquo;, &ldquo;his&rdquo; etc. but this post is agnostic about sexual&nbsp;orientation.</li> <li>Remember that this is far from being perfect. Actually, I didn&rsquo;t write it up to make it so. Rather, it&rsquo;s a basic structure about what perfection may look like. So, please read or use it with quite a bit of salt.&nbsp;:)</li> <li>This post itself is not complete. Rather, it&rsquo;s in very-very-draft stage (take v.0.1.4). Each of the timing decision which i described below should or will have reference/source/direction to back its reasoning or&nbsp;legitimacy.</li> </ul> <p>Ok, without further ado, here is the sketch-up for a ideal working&nbsp;day.</p> <hr> <h2 id="the-schedule">The Schedule<a class="headerlink" href="#the-schedule" title="Permanent link">&para;</a></h2> <h3 id="at-home">At home<a class="headerlink" href="#at-home" title="Permanent link">&para;</a></h3> <p>4.00 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Leave the bed, doing some basic stretching, then&nbsp;wash-up.</p> <p>4.25 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Tahajjud. zikr. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dua">Dua&rsquo;</a> especially if you got something critical coming up&nbsp;today.</p> <p>5.00 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Light snacks, e.g. cookies, eggs, milk,&nbsp;fruits</p> <p>5.15 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Fajr <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salah">salat</a>, then daily dua&rsquo;s, and recitation from&nbsp;al-Quran</p> <p>6.00 <span class="caps">AM</span> : some serious(that makes sweat) exercise. e.g. running, biking, gym etc. Remember, sweat have to be&nbsp;there.</p> <p>6.30 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Shower <span class="amp">&amp;</span>&nbsp;clean-ups.</p> <p>6.45 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Serious breakfast. Need to be protein-rich. Also enough&nbsp;carbohydrate.</p> <p>7.00 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Prepare kids for school. Have a coffee with wife, and discuss today&rsquo;s family concerns; specifically of today. Kind of scrum standup meeting. But with wife. While&nbsp;seating.</p> <p>7.30 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Start for work. Dropping kids on their school. Remember to kiss them&nbsp;good-bye.</p> <h3 id="at-work">At work<a class="headerlink" href="#at-work" title="Permanent link">&para;</a></h3> <p>8.00 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Entering workplace. Don&rsquo;t go for coffee, chit-chat or Facebook. Don&rsquo;t even check work email. Start your working hours with your most difficult/critical task at hand while it&rsquo;s still quiet in the office. If you have any difficult concept to grasp or painstaking bug you need to fix, start that now. This is your golden&nbsp;moment.</p> <p>09:30 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Open work email. Answer emails that needs no discussion. Postpone discussion-needing emails for the next&nbsp;slot.</p> <p>10:00 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Now put your team-player hat on. Complete stand-up or whatever your team&rsquo;s to sync-up on today&rsquo;s plan. Then, address any issue that your teammate is stuck on. Give your teammate time from this&nbsp;slot.</p> <p>11:00 <span class="caps">AM</span> : Have a coffee. Have some chit-chat with colleagues around. Attend inter-team issues. Sync-up with other&nbsp;departments.</p> <p>12:00 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Lunch time. Focus on vitamins, and fiber-rich foods. Avoid oil, sugar, salt-rich foods. Eat less than full stomach. Call wife, sync up with her during lunch. Sometimes lunch with team-mates, sometimes with peers from other departments. Listen more, talk&nbsp;less.</p> <p>12:40 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Zuhr salat. Keep zikr and dua&rsquo; at&nbsp;minimal.</p> <p>01:00 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Back to work. People are still at lunch, so relatively quite there. Start your next-most-important thing at&nbsp;hand.</p> <p>02.30 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Have a coffee-break with teammates off-desk. No work-related discussion. Discuss about their outside-work related &ldquo;projects&rdquo; or&nbsp;hobbies.</p> <p>03.00 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Attend any necessary inter-department things. Sync-up with boss. Else, go for a quick walk around&nbsp;office.</p> <p>4.00 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Back to desk. Check mail. Look out for any critical task, mail, issue. Solve&nbsp;it.</p> <p>4.30 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Go for a final checkup with team. Gather up all status or&nbsp;concerns.</p> <p>4.45 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Prepare daily-status-report or update all issues, task on your work&rsquo;s task-management system (e.g. Jira, Asana etc.). Make sure your boss gets copy. If it&rsquo;s in mail, make sure it&rsquo;s concise but easy to see&nbsp;key-points.</p> <p>5.00 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Finish up&nbsp;working.</p> <p>5.15 <span class="caps">PM</span> : &lsquo;Asr salat. Some&nbsp;zikr.</p> <p>5.30 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Leave&nbsp;workplace.</p> <h3 id="at-home_1">At Home<a class="headerlink" href="#at-home_1" title="Permanent link">&para;</a></h3> <p>6.15 <span class="caps">PM</span> : catchup with kids. What happened in school. What new thing they learned. What&rsquo;s for dinner. Some light sports with&nbsp;kids.</p> <p>6.45 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Have some snacks/tea with wife. Sync-up. Listen,&nbsp;appreciate.</p> <p>7.00 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Maghrib prayer. zikr. Reciting from&nbsp;al-Quran.</p> <p>7.45 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Have a Islamic session with whole family. Focus on al-Quran and ahadith. Your own thoughts are not that interesting. Keep those yourself. For now, at&nbsp;least.</p> <p>8.00 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Dinner time. Remember who is the real provider and sustainer of the whole&nbsp;world.</p> <p>8.30 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Come to your desk. Check personal email. Social happenings. Avoid long&nbsp;discussions.</p> <p>9.00 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Learn something new. Light reading about upcoming technology or personal improvement. Avoid newspaper or any serious&nbsp;reading.</p> <p>9.30 <span class="caps">PM</span> : I&rsquo;sha salat. al-Quran recite. daily&nbsp;jikr.</p> <p>10.15 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Go to bed. Pillow talk with wife. Avoid arguments. Rather thank Allah ta&rsquo;ala for this awesome&nbsp;day.</p> <p>10.30 <span class="caps">PM</span> : Go to sleep. Remember you need to wake up at 4:00 <span class="caps">AM</span>&nbsp;?</p> <h2 id="reference-sources-discussion">Reference / Sources / Discussion<a class="headerlink" href="#reference-sources-discussion" title="Permanent link">&para;</a></h2> <blockquote> <p><span class="caps">TODO</span> </p> <p><span class="caps">TODO</span></p> </blockquote> <p>[<strong>p.s.</strong> Thanks for reading. However, please remember that this post is in very-very-draft stage.<br> Please suggest a change via the comments section below, or by editing it on Github as the <a href="https://github.com/kmonsoor/blog.kmonsoor.com/edit/master/content/articles/toughts/a-near-perfect-day-of-a-muslim-professional.md">source for this post lives on Github.</a>&nbsp;]</p>