Let's be a Productive Muslim!

The 3 spheres of productivity - spiritual, physical and social

Event roughly attended by 500 participants masya allah.

Attented a whole day free-seminar yesterday wal hamdulillah, it was such a superb event (plus its free and that includes free lunch & tea-break too! Masya Allah for the overwhelming sponsors).

I would like to share with u people what I’ve learned throughout the seminar. Certainly knowledge should certainly be shared so that the goodness will not just be in you, but will be spread throughout the whole ummah insha allah.

Seminar Productive Muslim : The 3 Spheres of Productivity

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Bro Muhammad Faris the owner of productivemuslim.com shared us several tips on being a productive Muslim.

So what’s productive?

Output overcome input? Or doing work 24/7? Or getting our work done in time?

That’s productivitiy! We put in our focus + energy + time into a good use. To spend it wisely in order to maximize our reward in the akhirah. Thus productivitiy is not an event. It’s a life-long process. It’s not boring. It’s simply fun! ^^ And being productive certainly does not equal to being busy. It’s us being organized in a correct & fun way! :)

So lets start!

There’s 3 spheres of productivity – spiritual, physical and social.

1.   Spiritual Productivity

Spiritual productivity is an important element in being productive. Now, what does spiritual has to do with productivity?

Have we wondered how the sahabah, tabi’in and the ulama’ managed to have SOOOO many deeds done in the same time as we have?

In an hour time, 10 workers are able to produce 1000 packets of biscuits. In exactly the same time given, 2 workers are able to produce 1000 packets of biscuits. Who is more productive? Of course the 2 workers because they are able to produce the same amount of product in the same amount of time compared to the 10 workers.

The sahabah, tabi’in and the ulama are more productive in us in many ways. And one of the reasons is this à BARAKAH.

Barakah is the attachement of divine goodness to a thing. If it occurs in something little, it increases it. If it occurs in something much, it benefits.

There.

Living in a 1-room flat with barakah makes you feel as though we are living in a castle. And living with wealth (Alhamdulillah) resulted in more charities and good deeds.

That’s barakah. So how do get this masya allah barakah? ^^

There’s 18 sources of barakah that’s been listed here.

Good Intentions	Belief & piety in Allah	Putting your trust in Allah	Reciting Quran
Honesty in Trade	Dua’	Halal Income/Money	Following the Sunnah
Charity	Tying ties of Kinship	Waking up early	Marriage
Saying Bismillah	Eating with people	Praying Istikhara	Giving thanks to Allah
Salah	Istighfar

There’s an explanation for every barakah. Bro Faris even mentioned few verses of the barakah here and there.

Try to identify 3 sources of barakah that we would like to step on. Should be something new and not something we have been commonly practicing. Then apply it on our daily life. Insha allah we will find barakah in our life.

*I’ve choose 3 – eating with people, saying bismillah (in practically EVERYTHING i do) and charity insha allah. How about you? :)

So what removes barakah in our life?

It’s seems that spiritual productivity does not give much difference to our visual productivity. But that’s wrong. It does affect our productivity because time lies in Allah’s hand. He’s in charge of it. So how Allah arranges our time will have a direct link to the barakah that’s blessed upon us. Insha allah.

2.   Physical Productivity

Managing Sleep is one of the ways to boost your energy level thus leading to a more productive life. So how do we manage our sleep? Throw ourselves on the bed and bam! Or lay our head on the pillow and that’s it! Total knock-out.

So how to sleep?
Yup. There’s a method for it.

Three ways – spiritual, physical and social.

a.       Sleeping Spiritually

There’s always a Muslim dilemma of sleeping. Researchers found out that our bodies need 6-8 hours of sleep. Islam encourages us to give up our sleep for spiritual growth. So how do we balance between these two? We sleep for the dunya or for the akhirah?

Solutions : 1. Start with the right intentions. 2. Remember Barakah and productivity. 3. Don’t fight sleep but manage your sleep.

BEFORE SLEEP	Wudhu – witir – dua before sleep
DURING SLEEP	Constant remembrance of Allah – Dua if u wake up in the middle of the night – dua’ if u can’t sleep
AFTER SLEEP	Dua’ upon waking up – first actions*

 
*First actions is what is exactly the first thing you do when we open our eyes.
Grab our phone and check if there’s any FB notifications? Twitter? Email?
Or do we read our doa upon waking up and thanking him for still giving us the chance to live.

b.      Sleeping physically

These are some steps to ensure that our body has sleep qualities, and not just for the sake of sleeping. Ever heard of sleeping physically but working innerly? Do this to avoid that.

 

 

c.       Sleeping socially

 I’ve never heard of this term before – sleeping socially.

Sleeping socially is sleeping with a clean heart. We cleanse our heart from any anger or hatred against anyone. Sleeping with a heavy heart will lead you to waking up being more tired than before.

Resolve any conflicts or settle all emotional issues before sleeping. If it’s too late to talk to people, write it down J

#Imagine if you died that night.

After sleep, you need to WAKE UP biiznillah.

Rising up early

In all books mentioning about productivitity, all authors agreed on a thing – waking up early.  As for Muslims, we are encouraged to wake up early because there’s barakah in it. Prophet Muhammad – peace be upon him – said, O Allah make the early morning blessed for my nation.

To rise up early, we need to start on the night before (look in the preparation before sleeping) . Let us now make up a list on what-to-do-things when we rise up early.

 

The second items of a body hack or physical productivity is Managing Nutrition. To manage nutrition spiritually is by understanding the source of our food (how do we get our food or how does the food reach to us). And among the way to make food a spiritual exercise is by: saying bismillah/Alhamdulillah, eating with the right hand, eating what you need. Incorporating the habit of fasting (Monday and Thursday, and 3 days a month) is also part of managing nutrition spiritually.

As for managing nutritions physically; it’s known as you are what you eat. Food that we consumed will have an impact on our body. We should avoid skipping meals. Eating meals regularly (5 small meals) will help to boost our energy level consistently. It’s even better if we can plan our meals. Bro Faris even suggested taking a photo of what we eat! ^^ On a mental note, don’t post it online -.-! Just for your personal keeps.

As for managing nutritions socially (what?! There’s even social nutrition!)  yup! U heard it right! Managing nutritions socially is by sharing our foods with others. Prophet Muhammad said, The food of two people is enough for three and the food of three people is enough for four.

#Practical tip : Invite someone new to dinner tonight! Bonus point, if we invite a stranger!

The third one is managing fitness. Managing fitness is not only for fat people (like me? Or you?) but it’s for everyone.

 

 

Exercises should include working out (it can be a simple work-out) that make a maximum heart rate. How to calculate heart rate, try to google it.

The last sphere of productivity is the social productivity.

3. Social Productivity

Islam is a community-based religion not an individual-based religion. It is not a religion of me, I and myself. Nope.

It’s about me and the people around me. So how do we start?

We start with our circle of influence followed by our circle of concern. Circle on influence are a group of people who we have direct communication with such as family, relatives, colleagues, community, ummah or humanity. As for circle of concern, they are a group of people who are are concerned about, worried about but cannot do much about it such as the political people or the world saving community. Stephen Covey mentioned, one should start with the circle of influence but don’t stop there.

Everyone can make a difference to be part of the productive Muslim. So how do we start :

 1.      Find an area of interest

       2.      Learn/develop in that area
       3.      Share/teach/volunteer

Are we ready to embark on this new journey?

To be a productive Muslim.
Let’s do it together insha allah!

#All informations are basically on the notes given to us participants during the seminar. From the deepest heart, I would like to thank everyone who has make this seminar come true. I’ve learned a lot from this seminar and thus sharing the notes and ilm that I’ve gained. May we learned something from this article and may Allah bless each and every one of us. Jazakumullahu khairal jaza’.

For more information, go to www.productivemuslim.com.