Nahyan Inc

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salam

lesson 2:
- we create our own habits (having control over them)

lesson 3:
- the 4 reactivators in general was interesting
- i really need to work on my 4 reactivators. my big one is wasting time on the computer.

thank you. jazakallahukhair.

more…

MashaAllah, its nice.

Keep producing more.

Tried out the focus thing after Fajr…kept going off tracik

I’ll continue with it inshallah.

As-Salaamu ‘Alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu.

I tried the focus finder during revision and it does keep you foccused and you get more done. I tried it the 50mins 10min break way. But just wanted to ask bro, what’s the maximum times and breaks that you would recommend one to do and not go above? Also after how many hours to have a larger break?

Keep them coming, they’re very beneficial Masha’Allah

Jazakallahu ‘Khayran

Wa-Salaamu ‘Alaykum Wa Rahamtullahi Wa Barakatuhu

asalam o alykum..

jazakAllah brother

lesson 1: i didnt know, and i never thought that procrastination was a habit… habits can be killed… just like what you said before, which means that i can kill procrastination too inshaAllah… and thats so cool…. because if i think of procrastination this way, ill be able of get rid of it really soon inashaALlah….
waiting for more of ur lectures..

more!

jasakAllah khayr!
whaT can i say,,, a great eye opener! i benefitted much,

even from the break down OF 7+1, the catogories we didnt knw may exsist!

also, time managament!- really is not time! it’s us that can be managed!

defo= MORE!

MORE!!

JazaakAllaahu khayran

assalamulikum……..jazakallahukhairan…was benefecial

Lesson 1: I learned that procrastination is actually the first thing i have to get out of the way. Also, that habits can be formed consciously.

Lesson 1: I am not sure that procrastination is my weakness, but I do see how sometimes mundane things with less priority can take over life and lead to procrastination in the sense of delaying a priority. With your videos, you might include how long each one takes to view. If I knew they were short, powerful “bullet points” of a few minutes I would have found time to do them sooner. Once I did, I was into listening to them and knew I would have time to listen to them. But it took listening to the first one to see that it was really a short, but compact lesson of bulletpoint ideas. Masha’Allah.

Lesson 2: Forming good habits versus bad habits, I think that is always a work in progress, masha’Allah.

Lesson 3: It is easier to tame email and internet, taming the big distractor of people is much harder without causing hurt feelings. Muslims tend to be social beings. It’s easy not to answer a phone, or just to not open up email, but when we react with others it is hard not to put time aside. Tactful tips for acknowledging people and their meaninful relationships without getting distracted on a long social event would be helpful

Lesson 4: Multi-tasking can be helpful for problemsolving and moving tasks along (work on one when the others are stuck, the move along to the next once you can move it forward, that way you don’t lose time) but I only say multi-tasking as a negative thing in these lectures. Multi-tasking can be negative, but it can be positive, too. The key is more surrounding pushing priorities to the top of your multi-tasking list. That way you focus on what is most important and pushing that up to the top of your list, then once it is worked on as much as possible, falling back to the lesser priorities to push them up and work on them.

Lesson 5: I am not sure that I have as much difficulty with focus as with stopping focus before the point of exhaustion. Usually I get on a task and stick to it, then I go over and realize that if I get stuck on it too long it will cut back on my time allotted for other activities. I do think that logging and tracking what we spend our time on makes us conscious of how we spend it and then we can evaluate if we are spending enough time in the areas that we want to spend it. For instance, if we are spending 90 hours a week at work and 5 hours a week with quality family activities we have an imbalance and need to find an equilibrium. I think the key is finding the equilibrium that we truly want and working to meet it so that we get what we want out of our time.

Lesson 6: I think the real key is truly khoshoor. When I have too much on my plate, I have less time to just focus on my prayers. Even when I have too much on my plate, when I just stop the whole world and focus on my prayers and trusting that Allah holds the answers and Allah knows what is best for me, things seem to fall in place much better.

Lesson 7: There are some elements of our environment we can control and it is good to keep what is dearest to us nearest to us / most easy to accomplish

Lesson: Putting it together
Overall I think this is a superb group of presentations. They really are bite sized powerful bulletpoints that someone can quickly listen to on a day to day basis and get maximum impact. Conscious awareness of habits and then forming good habits that will help you achieve what you really want out of life make the difference.

Feedback: What I really liked was the short time period of each message, yet the ease of delivery and power of the message. I wish I knew sooner the time length. What I disliked was the little drum bit because it didn’t add anything for me.

Lesson 2: Although I may feel I’ve ruined so many things in the past, I must learn to be thankful for what I have now and look forward.

asalam o alykum… thanks alot for ur comment

yea LESSON 3 rocked, i was laughing all the way cause it was all about me… i was shocked how true it was….
my biggest problem is the internet, i tell myself, ‘maryam facebook only for 5 mins and only the notifications and the inbox ,.. bus’ and when i look at the time, its like 2 hours + (seriously!!) and then i regret that later, my reactivators also include blogging, emailing and day dreaming..lol.. i have this thing for networking and i get drowned in all of that even though most .. yes “most’ of the stuff i do is quite useful, but then you know u are right, i get distracted and i mutitask alot….
i go online with the intent of doing some research for uni, but i end up doing everything except that… i think that i have to have to prioritize my tasks, place them in a hierarchy and then decide what to do first …and that of course requires commitment and devotion..
the same thing is with ur lectures brother, i have them in my inbox for ages, and i always think of listening to them, par i get distracted…

now ive realized why islam puts alot of emphasis on avoiding and killing procrastination… its satan who distracts us, we have to be focussed, when we waste time, we put off the imporatnt tasks to the last moment and then we complete them badly, and we forget that ALlah swt demands excellence in whatever we plan to do….
now i have realized that procrastination is a disease or a curse or even bad..its like an ocean in which im swimming and i dont want to drown!!!, its a big deal and i should stop taking it for granted… i think that i should keep my objective always on the top, which is inshaALlah to emulate the Prophet Muhammed in the best possible way inshaALlah

Also i would like to thank you brother Nahyan, there should be more people like you, may ALlah give you all good both in this world and the Hereafter and i pray that He makes you successful in whatever good you do ameen… this is the least i can do for you…..
thanks a billion for defining this disease….now there will be an addition in my dua, ill pray that i get rid of it inshaALlah…

salaam tc

asalam o alykum…
lol

FEEDBACK:
amazing and brilliant lessons mashaALlah… jazakALlah for ur time… i loved UYT series…
throughout ur lessons you were concise in your speech, very friendly , very motivating and your examples rocked.. it was as if you were interacting with each of us personally…

im telling all my friends about this inshaALlah…im blessed and honoured that i came across ur site alhamdulilah… my past will not become and extention of my future inshaALlah in the matters where i have wasted my time and not done anything productive.

im in my final yr of uni.. doing law and inshaALlah i will integrate ur lessons in my life and when i get my result inshaALlah i will tell you how successful UYT has been for me inshaALalh

thanks a billion for ur time.. i pray that ALlah swt makes for you a home near Him in Paradise ameen.

goodluck with everything, tc salaam

ps. ill stop acting like shadow from now onwards inshaALlah
and you know what im a bit sad that its all over… par ill keep listening to ur lessons inshaALlah.

For some quick thoughts as of now: I used to think multi-tasking was a good thing, but after listening to the lectures, I realized how its actually more destructive than beneficial.

I’m actually having a difficult time focusing my energies on one task. I like the 50/10 and 25/5 min rules. So far I have been trying to implement the 50/10 but I find that my breaks turn out to be way more than 10 minutes. I will try to do 25/5 and see if that works any better.

JazakumAllah khairan for this series. Will come back to post more feedback/thoughts inshaAllah.

Salaam Br. Nahyan,

I thought I’d provide some intial thoughts/ feedback after going through the course, and insha Allah I can tell you how it goes in the coming days.

1. Procrastination – I definitely have some areas where I could be doing work, that I end up just procrastinating e.g. at the computer at work sometimes, and also at home!

3. Reactivators – Most of the time, when I come to check email, I end up spending more time on the computer because one link leads to another kind of thing! Although I have recognised this problem already and try and limit myself to 20 or 30-min chunks on the computer when I am “checking mail”.
Also, I identified with the fourth reactivator – often I’ll be doing some work or thinking about a problem and then end up thinking about something completely different and wonder how on earth I got there in my mind!

4. Multi-tasking – I like your point about this. I think I’ve recognised before, and now you’ve clarified it in my mind, that one job only ever gets done when it’s given full focus and attention. It goes against the corporate/work-environment mantra that we “need to be able to multi-task”.

5. Power of focus/Focus finder – For a few years now, at the end of each day I write down a full summary of how I’ve used my time during the day. This has led me to “know what I’m doing with my time” because I never used to know how I’d waste all that time. To be honest though, it hasn’t dramatically increased my productivity. I fully recognise your point about being “in the zone” when we have a task in hand though. I often think once I’ve completed a task, “I wish I’d worked like that from the beginning.”
I plan to use the 50 and 10 strategy though with some tasks during my day, insha Allah I see a difference

7. Environment – I would say that the “computer” is the worst environment because it’s so easy to surf the net when we’re supposed to be doing something else, as you mentioned!

May Allah make us more productive in all areas of our life.

Assalamu Alaikum..there are so many things which we do not take into consideration but the lessons make one think about them..as the sister above mentioned even used to consider multi-tasking a good technique but now when we think about it we realize why it wont work..i did try to follow the 25-5 or 50-10 thingy..n i found it does work.
Jazakallah brother for your fruitful n beneficial advices.
May Allah this from u.

Assalam alykum,

Masha’allah, excellent points raised in the UYT series. Actually I was surprised how short the audios were and still to the point.

What did I personally take?
1. Habits are learned and thus can be unlearned
2. Activty does not automatically mean productivity
3. Maybe the reason for lacking khushoo is that we keep multitasking (mentally) while in salah
4. My new phrase “Where focus goes energy flows” so if my focus is scattered, my energy will be scattered
5. I liked the exercise of adding or substracting three things from my environment to make me more productive

Jazaka Allah khair

Assalaam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu brother Nahyan… & Shukran for the valuable series:) May Allaah reward you immensely for your work & may it be a continuing source of Barakah for you… Aameen:)

I have come ’til the 4th of the UYT series, and here are my thoughts:

* it is important to have a clear idea of what you want to get done in what time. i realized just making high sounding (yet vague) plans won’t do. eg- “i have to send ___ msg to ___ ppl on facebook in 15 min” not ” i gotta check up on my old school friends & just say hello. wont take long this time” i end up getting lost all over the net for a good 2 hrs.

* purify your intentions. why am i doing ___ task? is it worthwhile or can i do something better? that shifts ur focus from that youtube video to the assignment.

* i realize that when i have a number of things to get done its more effective to draw up a mental priority list & go in order rather than multitask.

* the “out of sight, out of mind” theory. when i have something that distracts me, i get it out of my vision & try to focus on watever work.. after a while u forget abt the distraction altogether. eg- if i have to study only the required book/s will be on my table; other books, snacks, cellphone, laptop, ipod, watever.. are out, locked away.

* one of the major traps of shaytan that i fall for are whispers of self-pity. “i’ve worked hard for so long i deserve to go online for just a little while” & i waste twice the amount of time i used well. or “i slept late after a long day, let me sleep for 10 more min” result= i’m beating myself up over being almost late for Fajr’.
to combat this, i try point 2 above. plus just to spite the whisperer for putting such thoughts into my head, i do the exact opposite:)still working on it though..

thats all i can think of right now. looking forward to the rest of the UYT series & will be back with more comments inshaAllaah..

Assalaamu’alaikum warahmatullah wa barakatuh

Brother Nahyan, I received information about your program from Sister Saba Malik (http://www.morningwind.org/).

Lesson 1: procrastination

I learned that:”activity is not equal with productivity”. And that my habit of procrastination is developed by myself. I think, my procrastination has impacts to almost of all aspects. I have low determination to achieve targets in my life. So, I want to learn more to change this bad habit.

Wassalaam,

Lesson 4- I never thought multitasking being a bad thing. It makes sense that its harder to get something done if you’re juggling several things, but employers make it such a big deal. Newly learned “habit” that it’s time to kill

@Br. Nahyan
Assalaamu’alaikum warahmatullaahi wabarakatuh

Jazakallaahu khoir. Inshaa Allah, I will be able to change some bad habits that developed during the last 10 years. It reduced my productivity a lot.

From Lesson 2: I think the point that we should grateful to Allah of whatever we are now, is the most important thing. Since I am still regret many things that I considered as “failure” in my past. Faith to “taqdir” that I don’t like is not easy… But I will try my best to thank Allah of what have happened.

From Lesson 3: I am “the master” of cannot avoid distractions.
For me, the first and second of reactivators is “negative thinking pattern” combining with “people”. It is so bad so that for meanwhile I am avoiding to socialize if not so important. I can keep thinking words or an attitude of a person that I just met, with “negative thinking” so that I loose my energy to do some productivity works.
The second one, is facebook. I can switch easily from some tight schedule that I have just made, just to updating my status of FB, or to send “happy birthday” greeting, etc, and… I forget my schedule at all… and off course it usually end up with panic state because many “must to do” schedule is ruined.
The last one is phone call. I am not so sensitive to phone call. I can just easily say that I am busy when somebody calls in unappropriate time.

From Lesson 4:
It is an amazing lesson for me ! I thought that multitasking is a great capability that I should have. But, as I mentioned in the opening of my comment, I have developed many bad habits during this 10 years. And, probably because I thought that multitasking is a skill to be mastered, it has impact to my salaah. My salaah was gradually loosing its quality. Khusyu becomes a luxurious thing for me. I remembered that until about 10 years ago, khusyu in salaah was easy for me. And, my life was better when my salaah was good in quality. Maybe, it is my big problem, I forget how to focus to do something. I should relearn again. Nowaday, I do multitasking in almost of my activities. When I do salaah, I remember problems in my job. When I read a book, I think about my daughter’s problem, so that I can not read a whole book to the end for this 10 years. I loose a capability to have a sharp focus to do something to achieve a great standard as I was.

I look forward to next lesson. Again, jazakallaahu khoiron katsiiroo.

p.s. Thank you for writing a comment in Sr. Saba’s website. I agree with you, the website is great. For me, it is helpful too since I have the same hormonal disease as she has.

Assalaamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Br. Nahyan,

Thank you for quick response. I have a further question: What is the difference between multitasking and multitargeting ?

I think, in daily life, it is impossible to just having one target. We always have many targets. For ourselves, we always have some targets in personal development, in human relationship, at work places, etc. As for our families, we always have some targets for children educations, children developments, etc.

As for me, because I have a hormonal disease (I prefer to use it than “mental illness” to avoid bias and stigma), called “bipolar”, I wonder if my “multitasking madness” that having impact to my salaah is also an impact of the disease… Indeed, I lost my good focus to achieve a good standard in life as I lost khusyu in my salaah.

Jazakallahu khoir.

Wassalaamu’alaikum

Ema

@Br. Nahyan: Assalaamu’alaikum wr. wb., OK, thank you very much in advance.

Jazakallahukhair

lesson 4 multitasking

Ok i am a mum and i am always multitasking, and if i don’t nothing gets done, so i don’t know…yeah i see my self multitasking on the net and i know its not useful because i end up doing nothing fruitful. but how about other aspects of life, how can i identify them (multitasking)? they just seem like a must? and it drains me and then i feel like i quit on my family for a couple of days and become really lazy? HELP

the first time i subscribed to UYT, i remember you telling us to create a separate folder for it so that we can come back later and do it again and again.

man, if only i wasnt that complacent. you were so right ! lol

Also i remember, yesterday i was talking to my cousin on the phone, and also emailing at the same time. i realised that its impact was on my speed, i was both slow while emailing, and i think my cousin felt that i was distracted.. thus multitasking reduces quality….just thinking out loud.. cause my multitasking reminded me of your series…

Keep up the good work! mashaAllah.
May Allah subhnahu wa ta’ala reward you abundantly in this life and the Hereafter and make for you a home near Him in jannah for these free impeccable lessons ameen.

Hi+Salaam Bruva N,

Ya know…this series was a puzzle up until the end! It kept me guessing thats for sure. As i was going through the series i wasnt really understanding it properly mainly because of the fact i didnt realise its value! However i still continued as i was slightly engaged, enough to keep me wanting more! So by the time i got the last one i was like…man… this is what he was talking about (loved the feeling of clarity).

Slowly but surely i’m implanting what you’ve described & explained. I must say i amongst millions waste so much valuable time and now that i know so much more about procrastination (i used to hate this word) & habits i’m more than confident i’ll get em sorted insha;allah in quick time!

YOU’VE DONE AN ABSOLUTE GREAT JOB WITH THIS! I applaud you mate. Thanks a lot for your series. I’ll most definately be flaunting it. hehe. Then when people ask me how i’ve managed to get ontop of my daily chores and work i’ll direct them to you!

Jazakallah Khairan.

Haha… “my T-Shirt matches the colour of my bedsheet”.. Lmao.

Btw; the way you’ve set out the series through the emailing system is great! Its most definately engaging.

@Nahyan
yes i feel burnt out then i am not productive for a couple of days, and everyone starts getting and grumpy and the house gets messy!

Aassalamu alaikum brother Nahyan.

As you know Shamim is going to Bangladesh inshAllah,we have a home business plan.What is your suggestion?What is the art of starting a home business.Our product is Khimar which is a long hijab until knee.We have 2 types of khimar one is black another one is different print on linen fabric which is very soft and comfortable for salah and both summer and winter.The producer is a millionaire in Bangladesh.She actually started it for the sake of Allah and for the proper dressing for salah.Now she finds that it`s demamnd are growing extremely,that`s why she wants to make it from their own garments company.May be didn`t start yet.She is also telling us we should bring Borkha also because people want both of these.How should we organize everything.As I applied to UMM AL QUra university Makkah for 2010 if I get accepted inshAllah I want to continue the business there inshAllah.If not get accepted then I will study here as a full time student and will continue this business inshAllah.