“Time is like a sword, if you don’t cut it, it will cut you.” – Imam Shafi’i

How could the time ‘cut’ ? By seemingly passed us without being used in the right way, and it won’t ever ever ever come back again. It is a metaphor to remind us the urgency of time.

But who care if we waste OUR seconds, minutes, hours, it’s ours after all?

As many people know, one of my flaw would be my ability to manage time. I still struggling to be as punctual as it should, and it was getting better but I haven’t won this battle yet. So maybe it is not just by improving HOW I DO IT, but I also need to shift my perspective about time.

I realized time is not just a blessing but a responsibility as well, right? I think great people succeed because they win the battle with their own habits and time, regardless their challenging circumstances at the time.

Be the master of my time

Become a Working At Home Mom (WAHM), i could really easy tempted to waste my time, like my current guilty pleasure is binge-watching Korean drama while do the domestic chores (yuph! i’m a multitask person). Although i did all the task by end of the day, and it won’t cost any harm for others, but honestly it took little longer than it should while I need all my minutes to do another personal KPI (Key Performance Indicator).

My never ending household works kept me busy all day long, and I got bored doing the same things everyday. So Korean Drama will ease my day, and I can practice my English by reading it’s subtitle (just found another great reason to keep watching K-Drama hahaha).

Anyway, in this post I will share some alternate activities that could help us become more productive Rabbaitul Bait (in English we called it “Housewife” while in Arabic, we translated it as “The Queen of the house”) in Enschede (applicable for other places):

#1 Multitask with your domestic chores

Invest in a Bluetooth headphones, and you could multitask all your activities. While the domestic chores I count as activities that don’t involve too much brainy thing, I can (1) practice my learning both English or Dutch, (2) Hear Quran’s recitation to help me remember more surah, (3) Watching Skillshare video as part of my MOOCs to do list, and every kind of video/audio that will suit with my goals.

#2 Back to the class

In Enschede, we have POWER – an activation center under the gemeente (city government)  that involved local residents to work together to increase the quality of life in their neighborhood. POWER is for everyone, you could join their classes, and if you want, you could also volunteer as a teacher.

I know POWER from my friend, she took classes for Dutch and Arabic, also became a teacher for English class. I just joined the Dutch class for free since last month, and I had a great time with my classmate Mba Arin (www.therustantofamily.com – go check her blog for more life tips of living abroad, cooking and parenting). The best part joining POWER is that you could meet many people with different languages (most of them are immigrants), and you could choose your own date and time (If match with teacher’s time availability).

My husband would take care our 2 years old daughter for almost half day, because I took class from 10 – 12 pm, one session per week. To speed up your progress, you could complement with Duolingo application or other Dutch online classes.

Interested? Go check their official website http://centrumpower.nl/over-power/ it’s in Dutch, but you always could google translate or google chrome it

And for online classes, you could check my favourite MOOCs in this post.

#3 Join the community

I should highlight this, we need adult conversation every day, and socialize with other adults to make us keep sane while taking care of little humans and handling all things. So it is really important to have friends to spend your time with, not just waiting your husband back home and forced him to hear some girls talk (Yaikss!)

The best way to meet with new friends and get involved with current event is by joining communities. Since our first month here, I joined An-nisa (Indonesian muslimah community) and IMEA (all Indonesian muslim community) in Enschede. I got many benefit from there; new friends, keep updated, opportunities to contribute for others, self development, enlightment, and so on.

In IMEA we have more general topics to discuss, and invite Ustadz (teacher in Arabic), while in An-nisa we have more specific topics relate with women ; like parenting, cooking class, general info for in house medicines, make up class, and others.

MAKE The Time

Well, to summarized all, to have a right time for your goal is TO MAKE THE TIME. My daily time recipes, after morning prayer are :

06.00 – 08.00 Self Development (online classes, duolingo)

Taking care Najwa & domestic chores (TIPS: Take Najwa play at outdoor and I can reward myself with kindle reading while she’s playing).

22.00 – 24.00 Personal Projects (relate with my current business activities)

So, at least I could treasure four hours per day to be focus on my mission. I wish I have more, but for now this is the best that I could get. It will different in each situation, and you who know the best way to do it.

Let’s spend the time wisely  (^o^)