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So I’m pretty sure we can come to some sort of consensus that procrastinating bites. In one way or another, we have all been a victim of procrastination’s death grip on our time. And more likely than not, we’ll succumb again. But that fatalistic attitude won’t help if we are really interested in changing our position in this life and in the next.

In Surat Ar-Ra’d, we are reminded,

Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.

So really, if we want to at the very least, reduce our susceptibility to procrastination, we have to have  plan and we have to implement that plan immediately. If we don’t implement it now, we’re just perpetuating the problem – procrastinating in ridding ourselves of our tendencies toward procrastination.

Some of the steps in this plan come from Islamic teachings. Some come from psychology. Others are just commonsensical. But together, they form a simple plan for gearing up for action and taking charge of your destiny.

  1. Renew Your Intentions.
    On the authority of Omar bin Al-Khattab, who said : I heard the messenger of Allah salla Allahu alihi wa sallam say :  “Actions are but by intention and every man shall have but that which he intended. Thus he whose migration was for Allah and His messenger, his migration was for Allah and His messenger, and he whose migration was to achieve some worldly benefit or to take some woman in marriage, his migration was for that for which he migrated.” related by Bukhari and Muslim. 

    As this hadith was the first narrated in Yahia bin Sharaful-Deen An-Nawawi’s (may Allah be pleased with him and grant him jannah) famous 40 Hadith, I thought it was also appropriate to start us off on our quest. Nawawi made clear that he started his 40 hadith with this particular hadith because everything we do is worthless unless it begins with the correct intention. Nawawi’s attempt to start his book of hadith with pure intentions should be no different than us starting our work days or sitting for an exam and beginning with pure intentions. If our intentions are pure, there is definitely a higher likelihood of following through because our actions will be all for the right reasonsl.

  2. Make a Plan.
    So isn’t that what we’re doing right now – making a plan? Well, yes, we’re making a general plan. But we all need specific plans to tackle specific tasks. If I want to wake up on time to pray Fajr, I have to plan when I’m going to go to sleep the night before so that I can wake up on time. I have to set my alarm and account for the number of times I usual hit the Snooze button before actually waking up. If I want to cook a certain recipe for dinner, I have to prepare – I have to take out the meat from the freezer to defrost, I have to purchase the correct vegetables, I have have the correct cooking tools. We make plans hundreds of times a day. We just don’t realize it. By being more cognizant of the plans we make, we will be better equipped to put our plans into action and carry them to completion.
  3. Create an Environment of Action.
    If you want to study in your living room, but your living room is cluttered and messy, chances are, your studying is not going to be very effective. We have to create environments that are conducive to our plans. The gym is a great place to carry out your plan to get in shape. Your Muslim Student Association General Assembly meeting is a great environment to get involved with your Muslim community. The masjid is a great environment if your plan is to find peace in your prayers. A clean kitchen is your home base if you want to learn to make bomb biryani. Whether that means we need to clean up an area, create a special place, go out of our homes to find a place, join a group that will help us find that space, etc., it doesn’t matter – the bottom line is this – nothing is going to get done until you have a place to carry out your plan that you are convinced will help you succeed.
  4. Surround Yourself With Those Who Will Help You
    In another Hadith, Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) said: “The example of a good companion and a bad companion is like that of the seller of musk, and the one who blows the blacksmith’s bellows. So as for the seller of musk then either he will grant you some, or you buy some from him, or at least you enjoy a pleasant smell from him. As for the one who blows the blacksmith’s bellows then either he will burn your clothes or you will get an offensive smell from him.” 

    Basically, those who we choose as our friends will influence us and affect us. If we surround ourrselves with others who are lazy and who procrastinate excessively, we too will most likely fall into these types of behaviors. We should strive to surround ourselves with doers, people who strive to please Allah (swt) through their actions and then follow through on them. Of course, we are all human, so we should not expect that our friends will be perfect. But friends who also understand the importance of each breath we take and each second that elapses will be more beneficial to us than those who constantly delay.

  5. Just Do It.
    Sure, this is cliche. But this simple slogan is so powerful and so rarely adhered to. Our fears, our excuses, our procrastination, our anxiety, our failure to plan, our miscommunications, our overlapping schedules, etc. prevent us from just doing it. Our inability to throw off the shackles of delay and to just do it remind me of a quote I saw on a coffee mug a few years ago, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”. This quote struck me because there are psychological reasons why we delay and procrastinate. It’s not just that we’re all lazy bums. So much goes into it. And when we fail to act on one thing, this failure begins to trickle down like an avalanche down a snow-covered mountain, gaining fear and negative feedback and guilt and grief as it tumbles down into the abyss of depression and malaise until we are completely stripped of our confidence and our drive to accomplish. 

    But subhanAllah, Allah says in a hadith qudsi, “Oh my servant! If you take one step toward me, I take ten toward you.” All we have to do is follow through with one small thing. So when we consider our attempts to overcome procrastination, we cannot bite off more than we can chew. We must take small steps on our journey toward productivity and accomplishment. We must allow ourselves small victories in our battles against Shaytan in order to build our confidence and our fortitude. We must advance with strategy and stealth upon our enemy, procrastination, until it is overwhelmed with our achievements and knows it has no home in our worlds any longer.

May Allah allow us to implement these steps steadily in our lives so that we may overcome one of the most difficult temptations of our lives – that of wasting time. To conclude, I will attempt to inspire you as I was inspired by Imam Ghazali’s explanation of the value of time.

You should not neglect your time or use it haphazardly; on the contrary you should bring yourself to account, structure your litanies and other practices during each day and night, and assign to each period a fixed and specific function. This is how to bring out the spiritual blessing (baraka) in each period.

But if you leave yourself adrift, aimlessly wandering as cattle do, not knowing how to occupy yourself at every moment, your time will be lost. Your time is nothing other than your life, and your life is the capital that you make use of to reach perpetual felicity in the proximity of God the Exalted.

Each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, since each of them is irreplaceable and, once gone, can never be retrieved. Do not be like those deceived fools who are joyous because each day their wealth increases while their life shortens.

What good is an increase in wealth when life grows ever shorter? Therefore be joyous only for an increase in knowledge or in good works, for they are your two companions who will accompany you in your grave when your family, wealth, children and friends stay behind.

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