The Day I stopped separating My Faith from My To-Do List..

What my planner taught me about slowing down, surrendering, and showing up every day..

There was a time when my nights belonged to Korean dramas and my mornings to guilt..

One day.. I woke up late because I was watching ‘Judge from Hell' kdrama..

Because of that, I was not able to wake up early, and ended up not praying the Fajr prayer..

There were times when I prioritised watching K-dramas over reading for exams.. because of the plots they had.. (In reality, I have more plots in my life than those dramas..)

That feeling of guilt when I skipped dhikr because I ran out of time getting ready for college..

Those nights when I’d ask myself, what good did I do today to sleep peacefully..?

Or the days without reading the Qur’an, not even for 10 minutes..

Having loads of tasks but not being able to decide which one to start..

Well, it was not the first time..

And I am sure most of you experienced it at least once..

I experienced this thousands of times, and still was not able to change my habits and routine..

I kept promising myself I would fix it tomorrow. But tomorrow kept running away..

Until 1 Day..

I wondered, what if my planner began with Allah instead of tasks.? So I made one that does..

I started designing it slowly, prayer by prayer, task by task.. When I added verses on each page, something shifted. Every verse felt like it was speaking directly to me that day. Included every section that I need in my daily routine. Most importantly, planned all tasks to be around the 5 daily prayers..

And magic.. it worked..✨

Image designed by the author..

I wouldn’t say it worked well at first..

I used to draw Doraemon over the gratitude section, without understanding what I should thank my Rabb for..

Sometimes I kept writing just morning to-do lists, without touching the rest of the page..

Other times I wrote that I was going to eat just one bowl of Pulav for dinner, but ended up eating noodles, butterscotch ice-cream, Lotte Choco Pie, and whatnot..

I was struggling to manage everything..

But once I had a rough idea of how my day should flow right from the morning, I felt a lot less overwhelmed..

I finally felt like I was in charge of my life again, instead of letting plot twists of K-dramas control my mornings..

I found it hard to write every single thing at first, but as I made up my mind not to skip a day.. and maintain streaks, it started becoming easy..

Once, I watched a video on YouTube on how to plan our day around 5 daily prayers and appreciated it a lot..

So I modified my planner on the basis of that idea..

Then, as I added Quranic verses in every page, it gave me a different level of strength that I never felt before..

Every verse that I added randomly was somehow giving me a new lesson and a new hope every day..

Coincidentally, I started to feel like this is the verse that I need to contemplate today, which made me remember my best friend (my Rabb) more often than before..

Mom & Dad often used to scold me for bringing the water bottle with the same amount of water like how it was before going to college..

For that, I included a water tracker.. Even though it was tiring to mark water intake every now and then, that was also solved when I opened my planner with the intention of reminding the Quranic verse myself..

I was not eating every meal properly and sometimes ended up overeating.. I added a meal tracker to solve this, and for real, my streak of getting sick now and then was broken, and I started to feel healthier..

(I still eat Cadbury and Kiderjoy whenever I am sad or happy.. kindly ignore that ;)

I didn’t realise a simple layout could hold me accountable not just to my goals, but to my faith as well..

Photo by Nadya Rumaisha from Pinterest

As days passed, I designed a weekly and monthly planner too. Even though they were simple, they added more value to my days..

I never planned to make it public.. It was something deeply personal, a little space between me and Allah.. But then I thought, maybe someone else needs this kind of calm too.. If you feel like you’ve been in that same space, overwhelmed, guilty, and yet searching for balance, this planner might help you too.

🔗You can check it out here on Gumroad guyzz.. ***Daily Islamic Planner.. ✨***

I’m really excited to see if you doodle in the corner of the planner or not.. Whether you remembered your Lord a lot or not.. Whether you eat what you planned or not..

This is where the writing pauses, even if the thought doesn’t.. — ZΛ