AssalamuAlaikum Blogistan!
So this is where I answer all of the shorter questions that were left last time. Some of you had longer and significantly more important questions, and InshaAllah those will be answered separately. But here we go:
Take a bunch of apples that your children wouldn’t eat, peel them, and then boil them with just enough water to cover with apples. You can add a little sugar and cinnamon, and keep cooking them until they look translucent. When they’re done, blend them and then guilt your children into consuming them. Or if this doesn’t not sound appetising, turn them into pie instead. Cinnamon apple sauce also makes a lovely topping for grilled desert lizard. Bon Appetit!
Walaikum Assalam! I’m a big fan of the four quadrant system. I can’t remember where I first read about it, but basically you sort your life into four categories.
Q1 is Urgent AND Important: This is like your house burning down.
Q2 is Important but not Urgent: This is like your house needing a paint job.
Q3 is Urgent but not Important: This is when pink flamingo lawn ornaments are on sale for only one more day, so if you don’t get them now the sale will be over, but is buying pink flamingo lawn ornaments important to begin with?
Q4 is neither Urgent, nor Important: This is buying hats for the pink flamingos. They’re not on sale, the flamingos aren’t complaining, and there’s not real justification to spend your precious time dressing tacky lawn ornaments in the first place.
This seems relatively straightforward as long as it relates to pink flamingos, but what about real life? I need to do my work email- that’s Q1, urgent and important, and yet here I am answering questions on my blog instead. Are these questions urgent? Are they important? Some of the questions I consider important, but none of them are urgent. Before this I even snuck in half an hour of Minecraft, which is a big, fat Q4- neither urgent nor important.
In order to manage your time smarter, you need to clean up all the emergencies in Q1, and then work on living in the Q2 zone as much as possible. Q2 is where things are important but not urgent. That’s where you can schedule them at your convenience because none of them are on fire yet. Q1 is rushing through your homework the night before it’s due, Q2 is scheduling your homework four days before it’s due and being able to do an A+ job of it because you weren’t panicking.
If you’re really honest about deciding whether things are Q1,2,3, or 4, you should be spending your time and energy only where it’s important and not wasting it anywhere it’s not, regardless of whether it’s urgent. When you realize- and accept- that doing so will cut out most of your childish, pre-adulthood pursuits, you will not only be a more mature, productive person, you will also have a leg up on me, who still plays video games when no one’s looking. 😀
1) I wasn’t there and I don’t know!
2) Done. 🙂
1. Do you read books? What kinds of books? I recently read Destiny Disrupted which is a history of Islam told in a very, very beautiful, fluid, story-like way. It was so fascinating that I re-read it straight through a second time.
I used to read fiction- lots and lots of fiction. Then, at some point in my 20’s, I learned the concept of knowledge without benefit, and I started cutting back. Yes, I still read Harry Potter and enjoyed the Hunger Games (though book 3 was disappointing, frankly), but those are actually the last pieces of fiction I’ve read for a very long time.
I recently read The Illustrated Book of Arguments, which I loved, as well as some sciency book that my sister loaned me- I can’t remember the title. I’m currently attempting to read a book about Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and other heritable connective tissue disorders, but again, I really try to read books that will count for me in my own book- my hisaab- versus against me.
No, there’s nothing haram with reading books that don’t have haram in them, but if time is the most precious resource in the world, how can we justify killing hours and hours of it in the imaginary troubles of made-up people? There are real people with real problems, and the more time we kill, the less time we have to help them- as well as ourselves- live.
2. What helps you most to stay away from the time-suck of the Internet?
Honestly, I really, really struggle with the internet. It’s possibly the biggest fitna is my life, and I’m not joking. I use a few different tools.
- StayFocusd: This is a chrome plugin that you install and then acts as a guard dog on your internet use. I program it to give me 15 minutes a day of FB and Twitter time cumulatively, after which it automatically shuts down all the sites on my blocked list for 24 hours. It has other options as well, which close out your blocked site list (which is customized) for a set number of hours, or for certain times of the day. I close down my blocked list completely and only allow it to be opened if I access the settings at a certain time… like 5am. 😉 I do this when I have a busy work week, and it’s really the best productivity tool ever, MashaAllah.
- TinyUrl: This is another tool that blocks sites completely. It doesn’t have a timer, and it’s extremely useful for the kids too. Youtube is simply blocked for them unless I come and enter the password. For myself, I block certain sites entirely. If I needed to, I could have HF lock it for me and unless he gave me the password, I would have no way of unlocking them.
- I disable Safari on my phone. The restrictions settings can be passcode locked and the passcode given to another person.
- I delete the Twitter and FB apps from my phone and HF has the Appstore password.
If my measures seem extreme, it’s because I use the internet to escape from the real world when the amount of work on my plate stresses me out. This is obviously problematic, given the more I procrastinate/escape, the higher the work piles and the greater its associated anxiety becomes. I’m an addict. I don’t mean that in a joking way, I really, seriously mean it. I’m addicted to the internet, and it sucks away my time, my creativity, and my productivity in the worst possible method of self-inflicted intellectual harm.
3. I doubt we will ever meet in this life, but I just want you to know that I love you for the sake of Allah. Keep me in your prayers.
Jazakillah. 🙂
Are three kids easier or harder than two kids to take care of?
And lots of love and duas InshaAllah.
You know, when I had one kid, I was always busy. When I had two kids, I was always busy. When I had three kids, I was always busy, but now I look back on when I only had one or two kids and wonder what the heck I was so busy with.
I don’t know, honestly. I do know that I can’t imagine not having three children, and if two of them are out and only one is home, I’m still busy with that one. As a mom you give 100% of your attention to your children regardless of how many are there, so whether it’s 1,2, or 3, you’re still giving the same- 100%. And Allah knows best.
Asalaamualaikum sister hope u r fine its a long time u see. I wanted to ask that about floods here in kashmir . i can tell u there are lot of wrong practices happening here nd some people say that this was punishment from Allah can we say it ?? or was it a test plzzzzzz note there is lot of shirk here nd also some areas where badly affected while some where not !!so is it that Allah was happy with some nd angry with some ??? it may be stupid question but its bothering me .May ALLAH give u happiness in this life nd hereafter Aameen!!!!
Walaikum Assalam- in a nutshell, no. Allah sends people difficulties to test their faith, and disasters as a sign or reminder, but the punishment of Allah is hell, not rain. For more details, see the following: http://www.islamicity.com/dialogue/Q405.HTM
Now, there are still three or four important questions pending, but I have some really Q1 things to handle and each of those answers need the time and attention of Q2 scheduling.
Boss… How do you make applesauce?
*Sounds easy*
Ok, how do you make Dabb sauce?
Dare looking it up!!! *mwahahaha*