"Being a busy mother of small children and a home educator I can’t always afford to wait for the perfect time to memorise and most of the time once its gone, it doesn’t come back until maybe the following day. The last thing you want is to end another day feeling sad because you havent met all your targets.
It’s essential that we have a plan B to get ourselves out of this predicament of perfectionists procrastination and here is what works for me:
1. Get your Mushaf (copy of the Qur’an) yes now, no time like the present.
2. Get a timer, any type will do, no need for anything too special. I’ve used one on my mobile phone before and it worked great. The only thing it needs is the ability to measure time and an alarm that goes off when your times up. Heres one you can use online www.online-stopwatch.com
3. Go to the page your learning and count out the 1st 5 lines and round off where you need to i.e if I’m learning the 5th page of Suratul Baqarah I will only read ayah 25 even though its 4 lines. I can’t read 5 lines as the next ayah is too long to add.
4. Familiarise yourself with those 5 lines so you can read them without any stops or hesitation.
5. Set your timer for 10mins and read those lines as fast as you can until the timer goes off. Dont look left, right or up only down at the page, its only 10minutes so if you want results you will need to FOCUS. Regarding the speed I mean super-fast, we are aiming to say it at least 20times. When the time is up, try to read without looking. If you don’t have a friend to listen to you, you can try recording your voice and check with your Mushaf when you play it back (again I use my phone for this). If you dont get it straight away go again for maybe 5 minutes. Continue this for the rest of the page and pay special attention to connecting the ayaat together.
Note:
This method is specifically for the type of Mushaf that has 15 lines per page so the whole page is split into 3 and will take approximately 30 minutes InSha'Allah. If you have a copy that has less or more lines per page, please make allowance for this with your times.
You can sit for 30 minutes straight or the super busy ones can split the times up throughout the day i.e 10 mins in the morning, 10mins after Zuhr, 10mins after Maghrib etc. A similar method can be used for review aswell.
It works because one of the best ways to trick yourself out of procrastination is to tell yourself “I’m only going to do a little bit”, after all its only 10mins.
You don’t have to do a whole page either, all of these different methods can be adapted to suit your own personal ability. With this method, in the beginning I think its best not to specify an amount to learn but rather just an amount of time that you want to dedicate as this helps build confidence and also I find the more you specify the more likely you are to procrastinate if you have this problem and Allah knows best.
Above all make lots of dua for yourself and ask Allaah give you zeal and to aid you in your memorisation and then launch yourself into action."
Hifdh Club: A Journey of a Family
My thoughts
Worth a try for busy people.
It's an interesting technique. It's circumstantial but not the most effective long-term. The best thing to do would be to deal with your procrastination and start small. You don't have to do a page a day. Doing 4 pages a week is great! Do 7 lines odd a day.
This method will work best for busy people. You'll need 30 minutes every time at minimum. If you need to be relaxed and calm, without rush, this is not for you. Generally speaking, anything that's taken in quickly, leaves quickly.
