 Salaamu Alaykum I want to sincerely thank Ustadah Hussein and Imam Dawud Yassin because they made my job so much easier mashaAllah it was the perfect prelude into this workshop because when we think about all of the aspirations that we want to accomplish me myself I have four boys mashaAllah I work and I love doing community projects whether it be with kids or women in building sisterhood so I realized that coming into Ramadan I always felt like I was in survival mode and I was tired of it I said how can I shift gears and make myself thrive during this time how can I be inspired by all of these amazing lectures these inspirational talks and turn it into a reality within our lives so alhamdulillah I I've studied the corporate business strategies and I've also my passion is analytical tefsir so tying in a lot of these concepts that we've learned I formulated a lot of the worksheets in this workbook so you're going to hear a lot of the repetition of what they've already mashaAllah brought us to but in formats that we can interpret them into our lives and organize ourselves so you're going to see worksheets you're going to see tips and tricks you're going to have checklists and resource sheets everything at your disposal inshAllah so I'm just going to keep go through this and that so the first thing I like to do is I like to have a stop and reflect what does your typical daily schedule look like on a consistent basis some of you guys might be work some parents some might be students what does your daily schedule look like when you stop and you break that down can you think about those items on your daily schedule that are absolutely necessary tasks can you think of things that you can break down in that schedule that might not be necessary and then for the things that are absolutely necessary do you think that we can find ways to enhance it so that we can better utilize our time like imam do just spoke about maybe simplifying our meals I mean cooking is something that we all have to do but do we have to spend two hours creating feasts that most times we're not going to be able to eat after we break our fast so being conscious and reflecting on what we have to do what's necessary for us on a daily basis and then putting the steps in place so that we can shorten that time that it's committed from us is just something good to get into the habit of doing on a consistent basis just keep reflecting on that so one thing I like to say is for some of the unnecessary tasks that we do what are some unnecessary tasks that you guys can anybody in the audience shout some out can you think of any social media is a very big one that's a very big big one for many people these days so in my I bad the swap section it just again has you reflecting so if you are in social media and you become overloaded as a say said maybe set some time limits for yourself you know instead of being on there for two hours say I'm only going to give myself 30 minutes or you can try and go the whole month without it other alternatives are there are amazing speakers and people to follow that give you inspirational Ramadan tips that get you engaged that listening you can recite Quran together listen to help you kind of keep you in line so utilize the resources that you have to your benefits and then there's lots of other options for example if you are somebody who likes to watch the TV and movies during your downtime there are so many really positive lectures Islamic movies inspirational positive shows that you can gravitate towards during this month just to make your time a little bit more productive and enhanced inshallah gonna let you guys just read through that and we'll keep going inshallah one of the thing that was mentioned a lot is food preparation it's the effects that our food has on us so one of the biggest concepts I've learned is that within ourselves we have to learn how to balance the different parts of who we are so we have the mind the body and then the heart so our mind is kind of like our intellectual goals those aspirations our heart are those emotional connections or as it says at those purification elements of the heart and then our bodies are our physical needs our physical parts I want you guys to think when you are extremely hungry can you go and maybe ace that exam not usually what about if you heard some really bad sad news that have you has you physically in anguish like what I'm sorry that has you emotionally in anguish what happens to your physical energy levels a lot of times they're down so being conscious of what it takes as an individual to be productive in all elements is understanding all these different parts of our self so one of the things I like to say is for our physical selves being conscious of the types of food that we put into our body and the effects it has on us is important subhanAllah in our prophetic sunnah there are so many foods that are mentioned and when we think about these foods we look and we see all of their health benefits like subhanAllah I get goosebumps thinking about that because what we're taught in our sunnah is not just lessons to yeah okay that's a yummy treat subhanAllah there are so much wisdom and benefits to us as individuals if we are eating a lot of you know deep fried oreos chicken all this heavy stuff are we going to have the energies to get to tarawih if we want to set a goal that every night we're getting to tarawih we're going to pray qiam what are some of the practical steps that we can put in place to actually achieve those goals so food is a really big one a lot of people say well I like my food you know it's my tradition it's my culture and that's absolutely true and necessary it's a positive thing so instead of just throwing out the tradition keep the tradition but refine the recipes there are a lot of healthy alternatives to some of the heavier elements in our recipes that taste just as good take just as much time but we'll have a different effect on our energy levels so I go through quite a few and you guys can get the idea inshallah so me personally for Ramadan I don't want to make it about food I don't want to spend honestly any of my time in the kitchen preparing cooking and cleaning up after it a lot of us know how much time that can take so personally what I've done I was um a family of six I would cook and prepare all of my meals for three months one month prior to Ramadan one month for the month of Ramadan and then one month after so that everything was done that I didn't have to think about worry about food at all so this is one of my those was one of my family's personal uh one of the things that and excuse me that helped enhance my time during Ramadan the most because when we actually like that schedule I told you guys to think about where all of our time goes on a daily basis a lot of it ends up going to food so it would take me maybe six seven days of hard work but then three months of not thinking about it so I go through a lot of different tips and tricks on food preparation in here and a lot of the myths that people have so typically at these type of workshops I will actually have had food provided and people would eat and enjoy ahead of time so that you guys can have the energy for this long lecture and discussion but what I don't tell them is all of the food is actually freezer meals and then after they've eaten it they're like what no because knowing the little tips and tricks and actually trying and giving it a chance you realize that there's not much of a difference and then you kind of gravitate your diet and you make good choices based on that so imagine lots of soups stews chilies um and if you don't want to actually have fully cooked meals then just focus on one part of it just marinate your meats that by itself think about it if we had instead of marinating one different kind of meat every single day we marinated maybe five pounds of it and had it over the course of a few days does that not simplify and save time in the long run save with cleanliness we'll just throw it all in the food processor wash it one time so subhanAllah these little tips and tricks really help us maximize our time and food prep is a very big helpful one now we don't we don't have as much time we have about one week left for Ramadan so a couple sisters asked me well we only have one week left how much food prep can we actually get done in one week you can get a lot done every day this week for the next maybe six seven days double your meals you're cooking anyway just double it and freeze one then you'll have at least six seven days worth of meals for those days where you want to make sure you get to tarawih you want to make sure you do qiam but you want to make sure that your family is being fed another option would again just do meat marination get all of that out of the way pick one day and do all your food prep these little tips and tricks help for me personally i i'm not quite at the extreme level martial arts imam dood but i will only do smoothies for breakfast i'll do a date smoothie with bananas every day for so hot and honestly that makes me feel full it gives me the energy levels and after Ramadan with this healthy meal preparation i leave it feeling so revived physically so subhanAllah it's not like the rahmah that Ramadan is it's not supposed to be a burden on us if we actually go into it with the right mindset we feel all of its benefits even its physical benefits so so yeah there's lots of tips and tricks here one thing i got i get asked a lot is well we live in these smaller places especially in california how can we have the freezer space so i i get into all of that you can just get freezer bags you can freeze them flat and you can stack 10 20 meals easily even in the smallest of freezers and depending on the size of your family like you guys will adjust and you can figure out what works best for you inshallah you also save money you guys buying food in bulk buying meats and vegetables in bulk actually helps you save it in the long run so you'll have more money to donate for silica inshallah here i just go through a quick recipe renovation of like a healthy kind of meal prep idea for one day in Ramadan in the workbook because i told you there's an accompanying workbook inshallah you'll find lots of different tools to help you maximize on it so you have the sahur or menu plan the dinner if thought menu plan and then the grocery lists and then to help you assist you with if you do decide to go with freezer meals what's in your freezer to just know what you have and then organize yourself accordingly so the one reason i did the grocery list for every single week of Ramadan because again shopping happens to be one of the bigger items that takes our time so if we have a grocery list and we know what we're going into the store to buy we're going to be fast and we're going to be efficient we're also not going to be going into the store hungry buying a bunch of things that we don't need both unhealthy and wasteful so organizing that grocery list going and being disciplined to only get what's on there really helps us stay focused for our goals inshallah and as we said we really don't want to spend Ramadan with a lot of waste alhamdulillah we are fasting during the day and we have to be aware of our physical capacities and oftentimes we can't eat as much as our minds are tricking us into thinking we can because we're fasting so planning now while you are not fasting helps kind of visualize that so as again imam doed mashaAllah said we want to welcome Ramadan as a guest if we have guests coming into our house we go through and we do the deepest cleaning we're scrubbing we're organizing we're getting everything ready and prepared we are so excited that these people are coming into our homes our personal spaces well with Ramadan coming Ramadan is our guest so i would highly recommend going through a nice deep clean prior to Ramadan these are all steps that you can do before Ramadan so that when you come into it you come into it the mindset like okay this is my environment this is fresh set up a little prayer space for yourself have a mashaAllah put on your mushaaf your tasbih have all your adhqa in one place place it really helps you kind of get into the right mind space to best utilize your environment and then the other thing is you know you've gotten a little bit of a head start for aid so it helps alhamdulillah obviously we're still gonna have the everyday daily cleaning but doing that deep cleaning you know it really makes a big difference i like to use that example you know when we are getting ready to cook and we go into the kitchen if it's messy do we want to clean do we want to cook i mean nobody wants that so with Ramadan coming make sure your environment is welcoming of it and so this is also kind of the fun element if if you especially if you have kids decorate there are a lot of simple affordable ways to decorate the house which i saw a bunch of decorations outside by the vendors if you guys want to take even a simpler route and just grab some inshallah but this the the sheets that i have just help you kind of give you that checklist remember things that you might not necessarily have remembered oh another huge time saver so one year it was Ramadan and it was the last 10 nights of Ramadan and i was like oh my goodness i have to go buy gifts i need to eat clothes for my kids what am i gonna do so naturally what do we do we get in the car and we go to the mall while i was there i was shocked i mean i shouldn't be shocked i was there but it was filled with muslimin like every single store i saw so many i there were probably more muslims in the mall that time than anybody else and i kept thinking i was like this is the last 10 nights of Ramadan this is precious time and we're spending it in the mall so subhanAllah we have one week left if the only thing you do is prepare for aid get the outfits done get the decorations done get all the gifts done now imagine that's one less thing to spend your during your last 10 nights inshallah so again yeah lots of organizers to help you guys remember and so you don't forget anyone the next big thing that i found really helped save time for me as i mentioned i have four young boys and alhamdulillah these days there are so many products and people that inspire us to engage a love of learning with our kids especially during Ramadan so when i began my kids are a little bit older now but when i began many years ago there wasn't as many things that we had available to us so i wanted to make sure that Ramadan wasn't spent just you know depriving ourselves of food and then sticking the kids in front of the tv for long periods of time just because we were exhausted so what i decided to do was help organize my time and activities for the kids in advance so again prior to Ramadan this is another thing you guys can start planning from now so everybody likes taco tuesday right how about tefseer tuesdays get your family in the habit of getting these fun activities together grab Ramadan or islamic themed books you know there are so many actually amazing islamic games as well that they can play and be entertained with during this month that have positive islamic values so knowing these things and doing a little bit of time and research maybe purchasing them in advance or planning your own activities you know this is the time to do it alhamdulillah and then again the calendar and the planner just helped you find it all in one place and i know sometimes we just get to those points we're working we're exhausted and we will use the screens it's inevitable there are going to be those moments where we are feeling exhausted so what i highly suggest in those moments is have yourself a youtube playlist with positive Ramadan content for kids we have the things that feature ismail husna the names of Allah we have beautiful islamic nashids we have all of these different things again to enhance our Ramadan experience but also being mindful of our physical limitations and our emotional you know pushing points so utilize the resources that we have just prep it now so that when you're in Ramadan you're not like scrambling wait is that a good content is that a good thing you have something already gravitated towards your children or your family's needs your siblings needs you can be get the hasnath for helping family out so inshallah it's just something to be reflective of and and to help in your planning inshallah so now we've thought about everyone else what about our spiritual goals what about ourselves do we want to finish a Quran khutma this month do we want to memorize new du'ats do we want to um be more involved in the communities and help with the endeavors that they've already started and facilitated you know writing down your daily routine your daily goals will help kind of keep yourself on track so again when you're tired and you need some kind of inspiration you can go back like oh i wanted to do that today and again if if you need to there are a lot of amazing resources online and virtually where they have 30 days of beautiful content to follow along with so that's why i always add the links because we can use technology to our benefit inshallah especially during Ramadan so to help you set your spiritual goals i have a ton of content alhamdulillah so i told you i'm very big about intellectual goals emotional goals and then also physical goals so for um kind of reflecting on the type of different types of ibadah or worship it's just it's very helpful so in here you'll find tons of reflection and writing prompts to get you thinking about all the different elements of our religion it teaches you how to read doesn't teach you it guides you on how we can read hadith and then not just read it as it is but learn how to interpret it within ourselves and what the lessons we can benefit from and start actually implementing within our lives inshallah and then it's just positive guides to be reflective for example having better khushu in our prayer we're all at different levels so each thing is just meant to help us improve so when we leave Ramadan we're feeling like we are one step ahead of where we were coming into it inshallah so like i said there's going to also be tons of helpful resource sheets so i like to call this uh also it's not just preparing for Ramadan but it's also what i like to use as my ibadah binder like it has everything easily accessible for me so if i'm going to the masjid i want i'll just grab it and go so it has ismail husna in it it has written in arabic the transliteration and the meaning it has adhqaad and the helpful benefits of them it has all the different types of dots that you can utilize throughout the month and daily kindness challenges or good deed challenges so that we can give on to others as ustadah husay said we are a community we are a religion that really emphasizes being there for one another in our community so setting those daily goals for ourselves is really important as well such as surat al rahim maintaining family ties so there's a checklist to kind of help you remind remind yourself hey you know what let me call them you know we have long commutes how can we utilize our commutes better we can call family member we can listen to quran we do our mourning of god subhanAllah we have lots of opportunities so these will just help guide you and facilitate it one of the things that i love to do um especially with for younger kids and yourself is if you're looking to uh to memorize some dots for Ramadan what i like to do is i like to copy it maybe on card stock paper and then i'll cut it out and i'll tape it into the area where it's most relevant so when i was earlier when i was still learning and and getting familiarized with certain da'a for example the da'a for traveling every time i got in the car i printed it out and i put it on my dashboard so when i got there i was like oh oh yeah i have to say that da'a and then the repetition of continuously saying it helps you memorize it alhamdulillah so do this with any kind of da'a that you're wanting to incorporate you know the one where you're looking into the mirror when you're leaving the house there are so many beneficial ones that we can kind of incorporate into our day one thing i want to mention before i go on is you know Ramadan is alhamdulillah a prime time to fast but it's not only about the fasting there are many people that can't fast for different reasons whether it be for females being incapable at certain times sickness or age so like i said there are tons of checklist organizers and calculators in here um for physical goals uh exercise for me is is very important for my emotional state of being so being self-aware as sada has said has taught me that i need to release some of my energy sometimes so i have to kind of incorporate times for physical exercise for my emotional intellectual goals so one of the ways that i kind of advise this if during Ramadan um there are actually tips and tricks within it but one of the ways that i advise too if you feel like you don't have time is simple little tricks like if you're going to go to tarawiyah park far intentionally park far you'll find better parking spaces and then that walk to tarawiyah would do your health a lot of good inshallah so little things like that it's just reframing every act that we do consciously to give us the best chance to accomplish our goals so another thing that i highly advise is um vitamins you know understanding what our bodies might be lacking especially during Ramadan when we aren't eating sometimes the most balanced diets you know we might need a little bit of additional help for me personally with my gut health probiotics changed my Ramadan's i was always feeling sick and weighed down then when i started taking probiotics consistently throughout Ramadan it really enhanced experience i felt more energy i was able to get through it without feeling sick so subhanAllah vitamins you know speak with your doctors speak with a nutritionist alhamdulillah see what your body might need to give you that little boost of energy as well um yeah it also gives lots of tips for Quran khutma how to organize if tars because you know we will most likely have if tars during Ramadan um so if you do it just being organized it really helps assist with that and then if you are going to miss fast you don't want to you know lose track of the days that you didn't fast so there's a nice organizer in there for that as well um it also discussed the different types of zikah and sadaqa it gives you tips and tricks for how to finish a Quran within the month of Ramadan for example if you only read four pages a day i'm sorry not a day per sula with each of your five salas you finish a khutma in the month you finish completing the recitation of the entire Quran inshaAllah so now we have all of these goals set for ourselves where do we find the time we talked about like the little tips and tricks to kind of enter it into our lives but how do we give ourselves bigger blocks of time during Ramadan for this i give two options because as individuals we are going to gravitate our own personal growth in different ways so it's important to have different options available to us so i have the weekly schedule which is a block calendar and then we also have the schedule tied to salah so when the block calendar with the block calendar what you can do is you can write in the time frame throughout your day and then block out all the times that you know that you can't do something for example you're at work you're in class you're at a kids activity then when the free time blocks that you see plug it in as if it is work we wouldn't miss work one day say oh i don't feel like going to work no we make the time for it Ramadan is four weeks long so if we plug in those ibadda times those times of worship within our calendar we should be as consistent with them as we would our normal work schedule or our kids activities or any other type of event in our lives so holding ourselves accountable in that manner really helps us stay in line and focused the second one is our schedule tied to salah so a lot of times making something turning something into a habit becomes easier if we connect it with something that we're already doing so like i said for myself i'm a very physical person so i wanted to incorporate more exercise in my life but i had very young kids so i couldn't think how can i find that balance for myself so what i did was every time i was giving them a bath i would be in the bathroom right there watching them making sure they were safe but then i would do crunches or i would do something physical like some kind of exercise while i'm sitting there letting them play have a little bit of fun but i disciplined myself that way and so every time they were giving a bath i got myself so consistently uh i tied it so consistently to that that it became like a routine we can do that same concept with our abadagals tied to our salah so our salahs are something that grounds us it reminds us throughout the day to remember Allah so when we're doing that and we're taking the time out for prayer we can add something additionally into that we can add our Quran recitation in there we can add our adhqar or like we said you can sit at Allah and maintaining family ties doing positive things subhanAllah so we can tie it to our salahs just to help instill within ourselves that habit so now we're in Ramadan and we want to make sure that all of these amazing goals we've set for ourselves are actually being attained what i've provided was a daily check in for yourself so every day of Ramadan we have our salah tracker we have our fasting tracker where you are in the Quran and then some points for reflection so we have like a daily Quran jam so what i highly recommend don't just read recite the Quran definitely recite it inshaAllah but try and learn its interpretation when we do that we reflect on its meaning we have a deeper connection with it and we're more inspired to continuously read on a daily basis leaving Ramadan inshaAllah also again we are a community that thinks of others so trying to do a good deed every single day a kindness for others and reflecting on that so we can continuously add more of that on a daily basis is a really positive thing now we have so many pressures we have so much going on in our lives how can we keep our emotions in check how can we help self-regulate ourselves so on a daily basis i give less stress less tips so every day is a different tip to help you find yourself and ground yourself just so that on a consistent basis we can become more aware when we are feeling emotionally imbalanced and we can put the steps in place to help self-regulate ourselves then of course Sadaqan Zaka Ramadan is the best time to do our yearly Zaka and Alhamdulillah if we put in that amount especially the last 10 nights it again keeps us on track and keeps us giving inshaAllah purifying our well and then just for those who are especially i love this one i used to love doing it with my kids and i love it for myself i like having trivia challenges but islamically themed trivia challenges because like Imam Doad said we want to kind of make this like our religion engaging and and interesting so by having some funner elements for our kids making it interesting it just helps us stay on track then also reflection section setting exercise goals for ourselves making sure we're drinking enough water so that we are feeling energized and then also the healthy food or dates of the day now we have little less than a week left to Ramadan this is the last part how can we kind of take everything all of our goals all of our aspirations and how can we break it into a to-do list for ourselves don't think that tomorrow you're going to be able to sit there and get everything done and done and you're going to be miraculously prepared for Ramadan no you have a week left every day set for yourself compartmentalize your tasks into easy digestible amounts so that you're not feeling overburdened or overstressed prior to welcoming and coming into Ramadan inshaAllah and again one thing that i love to emphasize is utilize the resources in our community mashaAllah we have a wealth of knowledge we have amazing food vendors we have so much available to us that if we just consciously realize everything that we have and then utilize them in those times where we are feeling exhausted alhamdulillah we're giving back to our community but at the same time we're helping ourselves so being mindful of that is um just something i like to promote and then this is the final slide inshaAllah leaving uh we were talking predominantly about preparing for Ramadan but i also really want us to get into the habit of okay what how can i take what i've done and how i've benefited in Ramadan and how can i move it forward so one of the best things is just to kind of find balance within ourselves by setting goals in the different parts of who we are so their mind our body and our heart are different types of goals that we can set for ourselves and then inshaAllah we can turn these things into habits and next Ramadan we'll just keep adding and adding and adding inshaAllah so alhamdulillah i think i've talked quite a bit i wanted to ask if you guys had any questions any feedback reflections is there like a soft soft copy version of this book i'm sorry what a soft copy version of printable copy um there's not but it's available on amazon and etsy and uh we have it on the vendor store outside the physical book or the soft copy uh the physical okay thank you so much inshaAllah no problem any other comments questions reflections salam alaikum thank you for sharing they seem like really beneficial tips especially the time saving in the kitchen one um so i had a question so i know you talked a bit about women who might not be fasting during Ramadan so i'm breastfeeding uh this Ramadan i don't think i'll be able to fast do you have any advice specifically for breastfeeding mothers um on how to make the most of this Ramadan because we won't be fasting i feel like i'll miss out on a lot of um feeling you know spiritually in touch with the month yeah alhamdulillah this was something i feel like is very prominent in our community is like we kind of tie all of our spiritual connection to the ritualistic aspects of worship but subhanAllah like wassad hussein was saying there are so many emotional connections between our religion so uh in the work in the workbook we talk about adhqar going over ism adhasna names of Allah you know really connecting with the different parts of our religion setting intellectual goals for ourselves donating and volunteering your time at the communities i know you have a new born so it might be a little bit more difficult with your time but just being a part of these experiences don't feel like just because you're not fasting that you can't be engaged you can't be a part of these type of things and then there are so many goals that you can set for yourself that i've gone over and there are worksheets for it that aren't tied to fasting so um one thing that i used to do because i have four boys alhamdulillah was um i would set a lot of my memorization goals during Ramadan um so i would um do my morning adhqar try and memorize dots and memorize a lot of the Quran as much of the Quran as i could during those times where i wasn't fasting so at least i felt like i had that connection with the Quran when i couldn't feel like my physical connection with the fasting was there um and as well even although you're you're a breastfeeding you could still do all of the the Salahs and the Sunnah Salahs um maybe take turns if it's possible with your spouse to go to tarawih to be engaged in that congregation with the community it really does help your morale um as as a as a mom a new mom alhamdulillah and then definitely halakha and lectures i really want to thank mcc for hosting thank you brother Munir for all of your efforts alhamdulillah and imam dowod and usadah say for contributing alhamdulillah um imam yeah he left okay khalas inshaAllah i really wanted him to finish with the dua but mashaAllah they both finished their sections with the dua so um i'll just close off and alhamdulillah juzak la khayron again i pray that we all make it to Ramadan i pray we benefit from this month anything that you may have benefited from today is from Allah swt anything that was wrong or incorrect is solely from me inshaAllah