Today was a day that I was looking forward to so much. It was my day off work and I was so excited to have some solid time to do all the things I’d been putting off for a while.

I couldn’t wait to spend a chunk of time writing. I couldn’t wait to lounge in bed for a bit with my latest read. I couldn’t wait to maybe even have some time to get my paints out.

I made sure to keep my day as empty as possible so I’d have the time to do all the things I wanted. The only thing I needed to do was grocery shopping and meal prep.

But although the morning started off strongly, I found myself spending nearly half my day trying to sort out grocery shopping and meal prep. The traffic was longer than usual, the grocery bags were heavier than most days, the frozen veggies refused to defrost, the chicken took longer to cook.

Then when I finally got to my laptop to do a bit of writing, my mind was so exhausted, I could barely get through much.

It didn’t make sense to me. It felt like I literally had no barakah in my time whatsover. Time was just spilling through my hands like water.

I needed to figure this out. I needed to know why my time lacked barakah.

And so I decided to rewatch an old favourite by Omar Suleiman, and thought why not share what I learnt in my post today. I’m sure I’ll need this reminder for myself too later, so this is basically my set of notes!

So if you feel like time is just running ahead too fast for you to grip, if you feel like you just don’t understand where the day is going…these 7 steps are for you.

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1. Use the morning hours

The Prophet (ﷺ) said:

Omar Suleiman tells us about how the Prophet (ﷺ) used to use the mornings as the time to send out his army's and how even the narrator of this Hadith, Sakhr Al Ghamidi, used to use this Hadith in his life -

I find it so powerful that the Prophet (ﷺ) has literally given us our go-to recipe for finding more barakah in our time. Like why do we even need to look anywhere else.

But from experience, sometimes there could be other reasons too. So, step 2 -

2. Avoiding sins

Allah tells us in the Quran -

I remember reading a post that wrote ‘sins are a form of spiritual self-harm’ And I couldn’t think of anything more true. Sins block us from accessing the true barakah around us -from our time, to our wealth to even our intellect.

Omar Suleiman mentions how Imam Shafi was known to be a gifted child from young. So his teacher, Imam Malik tells him to not mess up this gift with sin.

I think that is why making constant istigfar is so improtant. Sometimes we don’t even realise we are sinning and removing that barakah from our own lives. The more we engage in saying ‘astagfirullah’ constantly, the more we open up room for barakah into our lives. (I’ve written about this more in this post, here)

3. Spending time with family

Although spending time with family seems a bit counterintuitive, the Prophet (ﷺ) tells us very clearly in a Hadith —

It’s hard to understand how that works. You wonder, if I spend these hours in my day with my spouse or with my parents, then surely I will have less hours to do productive things.

But that is the very nature of barakah.

Barakah is the attachment of Divine goodness to a thing, so if it occurs in something little, it increases it.

It is something that is put into our life from Allah. And so even though it doesn’t add up logically, it so very does on a spiritual level. The very Lord who orders us to establish family ties is the very same Lord is the One who owns time.

4. Acts of gratitude

I’ve never thought of this as a way of increasing barakah in time, so I was pretty surprised when Omar Suleiman brought this up.

He quoted the famous verse of the Quran on gratitude from Surah Ibrahim, where Allah says -

So how do we show gratitude about our time? Omar Suleiman goes on to say, the way we show true gratitude about the different blessings Allah has given us is to use them in His service.

Just like showing gratitude about our wealth is giving in charity, and how giving charity will increase your wealth.

Showing gratitude in our time is doing charity with our time, that is volunteering our time for His sake.

Subhanallah.

Just with point 3, this feels like a counterproductive thing to do, but that is the beauty of barakah!

5. Daily recitation of Quran specificaly Baqarah

The Quran is described by Allah in the Quran as ‘mubarak’ — a blessed book, a book full of barakah.

It is not recited in a place or by a person except that place or person draws barakah from it.

By describing the Quran as blessed, Allah is telling us that the Quran is a Book that when you recite it and spend time with it, it will add barakah to your life.

As a result, you will never ‘lose time’ or anything for spending time with the Quran. Every minute you spend with it, it will only add barakah to the minutes and hours after.

But Omar Suleiman mentions how Surah Baqarah has been mentioned as specifically adding barakah from the following Hadith -

I was completely unaware of this, so I look forward to adding this into my life more, inshaAllah

6. Incorporating dhikr in your daily routine

Omar Suleiman shares the following narration which I found so beautiful —

We all want barakah in our time to do more and be more productive. At the end of the day, it’s to have a heavier scale of good deeds. And here the Prophet (ﷺ) tells us how.

The ones who are in front, in terms of their scale of deeds, the ones whose lives were the most fruitful are the ones in constant dhikr.

That means dhikr throughout our day — from dhikr when you’re cooking, to when your walking, to even when you’re working out.

7. Keep the company of productive people

And the final point is to be around company who are productive, around people who use their time wisely.

Allah tells us in the Quran -

A better translation for the last phrase used in this verse ‘ وَكَانَ أَمْرُهُۥ فُرُطًۭا’ is something a long the lines of ‘all his affairs are all over the place’.

A lot of the time, when we are seeking barakah in our time, we feel like everything is just all over the place. That’s exactly how I felt today morning. So it makes me reflect, who (and what) is keeping me the most company these days?

Who we surround ourselves determine who we become. I’ve written about the impact of friendship more here, just because of how big of an impact it has had on my life.

And that is the end of the seven steps! Honestly, I learnt so much from this video, subhanallah. Excited for the week ahead!

If you’d like to watch the video yourself, here is the link.

Thank you for reaching till the end of this post.

I hope we get to meet each other in the next one too. Until then, if you have any thoughts about what you’ve just read, let me know. I’d love to start a conversation! Or feel free to check out other posts below.

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Until next time,

Thasneema🌻