How Procrastination Is Helping Us Become More Productive

MashaAllah, God has willed, ever since I was born (so I’m told by my parents and extended family); I’ve always been a productive person. From building blocks to reading, they even noticed that I marveled at intense, deep conversations as well. Well, with this high-productive energy level; it’s moments like this that may cause even the most productive of people to procrastinate…but, as our life is a trust from Allah, subhanallahu wa T’ala, we cannot be idle with our minds and bodies.

So, it’s really odd, funny, perplexing, yet wonderful, enlightening, and empowering at the same time; because rather than do what I know “needs” to be done, I’m maintaining the calm, happy, tone in our home by procrastinating and reading more Qur’an, studying more Arabic, praying more and just calmly going through our day and evening.

Subhanallah, none of this is intentional.  My girls and I are just falling into situations where we have a Qur’an near us, so we decide to read and recite together…we have our Arabic books hanging around, so we pick them up and start talking, writing and reading more Arabic.

These are all glorious things, and is coming at a time in which we have things to do, hard physical work, and make mentally-straining family decisions. However, we’re actually procrastinating from doing it.

But, little miracles, subhanallah, have been happening as a cause of this procrastination. For example, one thing that was supposed to happen; although we didn’t want it  to happen…subhanallah, it did not happen. Allah blessed us.

We were supposed to get something, but in order to get it in time, we had to do ABC things, which because I procrastinated, I didn’t do those steps, and subhanallah, it showed up today! Allah blessed us.

We were comparing two things, with two very devout righteous Muslim sisters of mine. Both sisters recommended making Istikhara, both unknowingly made a du’a for success…while I actually did not make Istikhara for that one particular question; each of our du’a were answered effortlessly, and in each of our own ways will actually GAIN more from the outcome, an outcome all 3 of us didn’t envision….we all made du’a for the lesser thing, and Allah blessed us all.

In witnessing these minor yet nearly-perfect-miracles, my girls and I have been falling to our knees making sudjah throughout our home. I instruct the girls to:

1. Give Thanks to Allah, subhanallahu wa Ta’ala, for these blessings,
2. Ask His guidance to keep us humble and on His straight path, and
3. THEN, make du’a for what we need, such as strength, dedication, discipline, etc. to help us do the very thing we’re procrastinating from doing.

Subhanallah, one would argue that I’m not procrastinating at all, as I’m obviously “productive” at something critical to life as a Muslim, our ibadah (acts of worship)…but, inshaAllah, God willing, if you read this far in my article, you know that my intentions and actions are not one of the same “I need to do A, and procrastinating from A. However, because I’m doing Z, with intentions towards Z, Allah is blessing us with getting some of A done, subhanallah.” However, A  is really A-Y; so please keep us in your du’a that we are productive in those duties and on-time too, inshaAllah. I’m just sharing my little observations, discoveries, and lessons learned. We’re always curious to hear your thoughts and reflections as well.

photo credit: sektordua

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Tags: du'a, prayer, productive, worship

Category: Islam