Ramadan is still fresh in your mind; the long days of fasting, the pain in your legs and back from taraweeh, and most of all, that biting regret that you didn’t do enough.

Would you like to make the next Ramadan even better? With only five minutes worth of effort?! Try this out: create a new document (by hand or computer, whatever you like) called “Ramadan Retrospective.” List out the following:

• What you did well. Maybe you read more Qur’an than ever before! Or you prayed taraweeh every day. Whatever it is.
• What you didn’t do well enough. Maybe you neglected your sunnah prayers because you were tired, or slept after Fajr. Write all that down.
• What to do better next time. List the missed opportunities. Maybe you didn’t have a concrete plan for the last ten nights. Or you never bothered planning for ‘ittakaaf, and so, missed it.

The key step is to keep this in a safe place and look at it next Ramadan. This will insha’Allah give you a strong starting-point to move forward from. The key is to spend some time really thinking about it. If you don’t, it’ll just be superficial.

May Allah accept our good deeds and keep us doing them even after Ramadan has ended–ameen. And that, scholars say, is one of the best signs that your deeds were accepted.

Wallahu a’lam.

One final point–please list in the comments any lessons you learned (or heard about but maybe already knew) from Ramadan. Let’s see how much benefit we can come up with, insha’Allah. Here are a few to get you started from what I learned:

• Eat little in Iftar, because bloat makes you sleepy in taraweeh.
• Learn Arabic, because then taraweeh will be enjoyable, not endless.
• Make a du’a list and use it every night in the last ten nights.
• Pray two rakaahs before Fajr. It counts as Tahajjud!
• Make du’a when you break your fast — that’s one of the best times.
• Eat healthy.

اللّهُمَّ إنِّي أعُوذُبِكَ مِن العَجزِ وَ الكَسلٍ

Why is this du’a important? For two reasons:

• Laziness is an attribute of munafiqeen. If this wasn’t bad enough, being lazy leads to procrastination, which leads to its own set of problems.
• It’s common these days for people to say “I can’t do it.” Like “I can’t pray at work,” or “I can’t achieve X.” The Prophet (salallahu alayhi wa sallam) would say a’oothubillah to that kind of talk. Think about it!

Action Plan:

• Memorize this du’a and make it every day in your sujood in every salaah. You have the Arabic, transliteration, and translation–you have no excuse not to do it!
• Share your tips. What other tips and tricks do you use to overcome laziness and procrastination? Let us know in the comments!

Lazy Boy: A Khutbah by Muhammad Alshareef. Published by Eman Rush audio.