VASIM KAPADIA

How are you?

No, seriously, how are you REALLY?

Mentally, physically, emotionally….you good?

This pandemic isn’t easy. Everyone is struggling in their own way. Whether it’s financial, mental, physical, or emotional, the struggle is real.

Something that has consistently come up when discussing ways to cope with social distancing and quarantining is having a routine. Having a routine and going about your day in a manner that mimics our non-pandemic lifestyle can help offset the challenge of having to stay home without being able to go out. I can understand and accept having a routine since it can provide structure to a life that has for a lot of people been simplified to the living room, kitchen, work station, and bathroom. It’s easy to get lazy and get caught up doing things that may decrease productivity.

For the purpose of this blog post, I want to hone in on one specific thing that typically applies to having a routine: the time you wake up.

The time that you wake up in the morning can determine a number of things- the amount of sunlight you’ll get, the amount of time you have before you have to start work, the amount of time you have before the rest of the world wakes up (assuming you’re up earlier than most).

I’m going to speak from personal experience and tell you that a few weeks into quarantine, I was struggling. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact challenge, but just staying home without being able to go out and enjoy the day was becoming really difficult. So I stopped and asked myself, “will a routine help? and if so, what is the best one to follow?” I could’ve made my own but why try and re-invent the wheel! Instead, I decided to copy the routine of someone highly successful.

Steve Jobs? Bill Gates? Gary V? Yeah, sure all of these people are successful in their own right, but I don’t look up to any of them. Instead, I chose the routine of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and right off the top, I found that he would wake up early. No, not early as in 6:15am. I mean early as in before the sun broke it’s plane. Essentially, he woke up when it was still dark outside, and spent time praying or remembering God. Once he was done, he then carried on with his day.

For a while now, I’ve heard that waking up early is beneficial. Look no further than the countless entrepreneurs who live by this. There’s even a book called the 5AM club! And no, this isn’t a plug for the book. The benefits of waking up at 5am doesn’t only reap financial benefits, although it might be hard to see passed that since famed entrepreneurs wake up early, do some sort of physical excercise, and then go and make millions of dollars. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) wasn’t rich, in fact, he didn’t have many worldly possessions at all. But what he did do was live a complete life. And although I can go on about this topic for paragraphs, I won’t.

Look, the 5 AM wheel has already been created and implemented. No need to re-invent it. Whether we need that extra push during this quarantine, or just want to make a tweak or two, waking up early, may be exactly what we need. It’s stood the test of time, just look back through history.

Click here for the Prophetic routine.