Spring semester is fully under way and now with Ramadan on top
of that, we can forget the struggle of finding the perfect
eighth fit. Because surviving school during
Ramadan is the real challenge. Pulling all nighters, not being
able to keep your eyes open during class, constant stress,
not being able to focus all while being hungry.
It doesn't matter if you're in high school or university, it's
a hard time all around. This episode will serve as the
ultimate guide to balancing school and worship during
Ramadan. Hey guys, this is Machine your
host and welcome back to Journey to Jenna, a podcast created to
help you become your own dream girl.
This is the 5th episode of the Ramadan series and we are going
to talk all about balancing school and worship during
Ramadan. I'm going to be sharing 7 tips
that will help all of you tip 1 plan.
Get a planner, an agenda, and plan out your day.
I'd also recommend using a Google or Apple calendar just so
you can get down everything exactly for the times when
you're doing it. So this really helps in terms of
time management, schedule in your classes, your homework
sessions. So who or as we call it.
I see us getting hated for calling it that and tik toks and
rules, but I'm going to keep on saying that anyways.
Just schedule everything and laying everything out just helps
so much. Before you actually start
putting things into your calendar though, but I want you
all to do is to create three different lists.
The first one will include everything that you want to do
in regards to the Dean. This will stay the same all
throughout Ramadan. The second list will be
everything you need to do for school which will change
throughout the month based on your assignments, quizzes, and
whatever else it is that you have.
And then third list is self-care.
And this is at least two to three things that you will do
every day to help balance out the Dean and like the school
aspects of your life. So one example of this would be
for Dean reading 3 pages of the Quran after every prayer, going
to Taraweeh and then praying six times every day, the Hajj and
then the five obligatory prayers and then wearing proper hijab
for school. Obviously this will change
again, but maybe this week I have two assignments due and
then a quiz on Friday. And then for self-care, get at
least seven hours of sleep at night and a nap during the day
and then go on a walk every day. Then you're going to take all of
this and then you're going to use it to plan out your whole
entire week. I know a lot of people like to
plan out daily, but I would honestly recommend instead
planning out weekly. That way you have a lot less
stress. Just like the Sunday before your
week starts, go into your calendar and plan out everything
for the whole entire week. That way you're not going in the
night before and stressing, what am I going to do at this time?
What am I going to do at this time?
Just having that weekly overview and knowing exactly what it is
that you're doing every single day takes away a lot of the
stress, and it helps with time management.
When you're actually going in to schedule everything out, the
first thing that you want to do is schedule in your prayers.
That is the most important thing.
Scheduling your day around your prayers is the way to go.
After that schedule in when you have your classes and then the
remaining space that you have is when you're going to add in all
of the tasks that you have from the three lists.
So for prayers, I would add, let's just say 15 to 20 minutes
after so I have time to read those 3 pages.
I know a lot of people have school during the hood,
especially if you're in high school.
So if it was me, what I'd do is I'd leave that until lunchtime
and then since I'm not eating, use that time to pray and read
Quran. If finishing it is not a goal
for you, then using your lunchtime to do any extra work
that you have is also a very productive and smart thing to
do. I schedule in a 30 minute nap
right after I got home from school so I can rest, get my
energy back. And then after I wake up, I'll
work on my assignments. Take a break for us Sir and Reid
Quran back to the assignments and then after Mahrab and if
thought I'll help clean up, go on a 20 minute walk, rest until
it's time for a shot and then go to the mustard for that.
We come home and if I have more work to do, I'll do that until
I'm done and then go to sleep and then repeat the same thing
the next day. A few strategies that I would
implement while I'm actually doing my work is to do the
easier assignments first. That way you can just get them
done and out of the way and the remaining amount of time that
you have you know you can focus on the tasks that you are going
to find harder or are going to take a lot more time.
Also, when you're scheduling in everything into your planner, I
would also recommend for your study sessions, putting in
exactly what you're going to do in each study session.
That way, when you sit down to study or to do your work, you
know exactly what it is that you're doing.
You're not, you know, scrambling around thinking what am I going
to do next, You have a plan. Another great thing that you can
do is use the Pomodoro method, which basically breaks down your
study sessions into smaller increments.
So you can work for let's just say 25 minutes, take a 5 minute
break, work for 40 minutes, take a 10 minute break.
Using this method just helps to make everything a lot more
manageable. I feel like when I'm studying
for a long period of time afterwards, I just want to go in
my bed and not do anything, and I tend to work for like hours.
So when I do stop working, it's sort of kind of like a crash.
And to help prevent that, the Pomodoro method works really
well. Also, if it's possible for you,
one thing that you can do to minimize or get ahead on your
assignments is to do as much of your assignments at school as
possible. Sometimes in class you'll have
an extra 10 minutes at the end where you're doing nothing and
you're just talking to your friends.
Use that time to instead do your homework or to study, get ahead
and that again, it minimizes the amount of work you're going to
have to do when you get home. Also, if you're in university,
then the little example that I gave is not going to be how your
day goes. I'd still recommend using the
method of breaking things down into the three lists because it
just helps to get everything organized, and it also helps in
balancing things out so that you aren't doing too much to the
point where you're burning yourself out.
When you're making your schedules, please make sure to
be realistic. Scheduling in breaks is 100% OK
like I would actually recommend that you do that to allow
yourself to rest in between the day.
If one day, let's just say you can barely keep your eyes open,
don't be afraid to change your schedule and go take a nap.
And this leads me to tip #2. Listen to your body.
No matter what way you look at it, this month is going to take
some sort of toll on your body. Cramming for your upcoming
biology test while your stomach's growling and you have
a headache isn't exactly a recipe for academic success.
That's why it's crucial to listen to your body's cues.
If you're feeling foggy headed or like you can't concentrate,
adjust your study schedule. There's no shame and taking a
break to recharge yourself. And when you do come back to
study afterwards, you're going to thank yourself because you're
going to feel a lot better. You're going to be able to focus
better and retain the information better as well.
Ramadan changes our regular routine in terms of both our
sleeping patterns and our eating patterns.
So it's normal that you're going to feel tired.
Some people are morning people and others are night owls.
What you need to do is find your peak energy times and schedule
your more heavy study sessions during these times so you can
study more effectively. This can be right after sahur,
or in the afternoon, or after thraway.
Whatever time works best for you, use that to your advantage
so that you can get some productive study sessions in.
Just be aware of your body's natural rhythms and plan
accordingly. Like, if you're someone who hits
snooze five times in the morning, please do not plan to
cram for an exam at 3:00 in the morning.
Do it the night before. Please get an adequate amount of
sleep at night. If you don't, you'll have a hard
time focusing and your energy levels are going to be so low.
If you do plan on pulling all nighters at some point, get some
rest in during the day, get a nap in, and if your body is
genuinely tired again, listen to it and allow yourself to rest.
Be kind to yourself. Listen to the signals your body
is sending you and adjust your schedule accordingly.
Tip #3. Properly manage your energy for
suhoor. Plan your meals so that you're
eating something that will actually sustain your energy
levels throughout the day. Instead of having a bowl of
cereal, try to go for a meal that has carbohydrates, protein,
and healthy fats that will release energy slowly so that
you don't get tired early on. Same thing for if thought eat a
healthy and balanced meal so that your body actually has what
it needs to energize itself. And on top of that, don't eat
too much. If you're going to do that,
you're going to get yourself into a food coma and that's
going to make doing things after if they are super hard.
Also, please drink your water. And no, I don't mean chugging a
whole bottle 2 minutes before fudger, Like actually drink
water after if thawed, have a water bottle with you so that
you can sip on it throughout the night so your body can stay
hydrated. Dehydration is one of the
leading causes of headaches and that is not something you want
to deal with while you're studying.
So please again, drink your water.
Tip #4, make sure your intentions are in the right
place. It's all about your intention
when you approach your studies with the goal of not just
getting good grades, but also using your knowledge to benefit
society to contribute positively to the world.
Think about it like you're studying so that you can get a
job and be financially secure so that you can then worship Allah
Subhana with Allah without having to worry about money.
It becomes an act of serving Allah Subhana with Allah.
So the next time you sit down to study, just take a moment to set
your intentions and say I'm doing this for Allah and this
will turn it into a form of ibadah.
Tip #5, communicate with your teachers.
I know it may seem a bit scary at first, but teachers are
extremely understanding of your life.
They understand that you have things outside of school.
So tell them that you're fasting and ask for any accommodations
that you may need. When I was in high school, what
I would do for gym is I would go tell my gym teacher like, hey,
I'm fasting. Is it OK if I don't participate
or just walk around so I don't dehydrate myself too much and I
can reserve my energy and he would be perfectly OK with it.
I promise you, it's like they're super understanding.
And if they're not, you can always go to another teacher or
a supervisor and try to get what you need that way.
Tip number six, change how you view balancing worship and
studying. You have less time to study
because you're spending more time engaging in acts of
worship. That's essentially the mindset
that we have when we say that we don't have enough time to study
during Ramadan and what you're doing is looking at it from a
perspective of lack. And that's not how we should be
viewing it. We should be seeing it as a
blessing. It doesn't take away from other
parts of our life. Rather it helps to enhance them
through all of the different acts of worship that we do.
We are practicing discipline and we are also training our minds
to be more focused, to be more concentrated on doing one thing,
and this will then carry on to other parts of our life and have
a positive effect on them. So at school, it'll help to make
your study more effective because you've been practicing
discipline of that degree. So you're going to be able to
focus more on whatever it is that you're doing.
If you listen to this podcast a lot, you know I am a very big
believer that your mindset determines everything.
It determines how you view your life.
And this is one of those things where you need to change your
mindset to look at it from a perspective of abundance rather
than from a perspective of lack. So change your mindset.
It will honestly help so much. And then we have our final tip,
tip #7, which is don't underestimate the power of dua
and the hajud. There are so many beautiful duas
out there that are specifically for seeking knowledge or for
making it easier for you. One of them is allahumala sahla
illah Maja al tahu sahala what anta tajala al hazana idasha
sahla which means oh Allah, nothing is easy except what you
have made easy. If you wish, you could make the
difficult easy. Basically what you're saying to
Allah to this dua is you're asking him to make studying
easier for you and you can find a bunch of more easy duas that
you can say with a quick Google search.
And if you don't know how to say anything in Arabic, then you can
say something in your native language, even as simple as your
Allah. Grant me knowledge and allow me
to have a successful and focused study session.
Don't underestimate what God can do for you.
Do not underestimate what he can give you.
Ask him for his help and he will help you.
He will listen to you. If you have an exam coming up,
pray the Hajj and ask Allah to help you do well on it.
You have the power to be delusional here because the
Hajju exists. The Hajju duas truly do come
true and I also have a podcast episode on how to pay the Hajju.
If you don't know how to, you can go check that out.
Do your best and leave the rest in the hands of Allah and I
promise that he will never disappoint you.
That brings us to the end of this episode.
I hope all of you have taken something positive away from
this and actually apply it into your life so that you can make
the most out of this. Following month.
Make sure to follow my Instagram for daily motivation and to just
see my life. I'll have a link to that in the
description. I also have a link to the Gen.
general website. There are a few free resources
like a weekly planner and a solo tracker that you can download
and use. And then I also have a few
Ramadan planners, an ocean planner.
With that, I said. And I'll see you guys in
tomorrow's episode.