Tips
A little reminder, first to myself and then to you.
Make time for your deen. We all make time for school, work, friends etc, but when it comes to our deen we often find it difficult to make time for even an hour a day. Make time for your deen. Schedule classes. Allah ﷻ has blessed us so much that we can gain knowledge from the comfort of our own homes. Find a series of lessons, plan 1 or 2 days per week that you sit down to these lessons and keep this structure! Gaining knowledge needs time. Everything has to be done step by step. So if you want to gain knowledge, you have to stay consistent.
Many sisters make the mistake of doing too much right away. They start with 5 lessons a week, read 3 books and want so much while doing nothing before. The chance is then so great to fall back. Start small and then build it up. Once you have a structure, you can continue working. So find a lesson, a lesson lasts an average of 1 hour, plan 1 or 2 days in which you want to listen to that lesson. You will see how much you have grown with knowledge after 6 months. Keep going.
Seek out sisters who would like to teach classes with you. This helps me the most. Put a small group of sisters (5 to 6) together in a group discussion and share notes with each other. This way you motivate each other and you can improve each other where necessary. ♥️
May Allah make it easier for all of us!
Tips for making Notes.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Below are some tips for taking notes (for lessons/lectures)
- Writing helps you memorize and summarize what you are listening to. The most important thing is that you write down everything you hear. Typing could also be an option, but writing it down is better.
- Do not use separate notebooks, but buy a large folder with tabs in which you do a different lesson or topic for each tab. This way you can use any notebook to register and store everything in your folder. Handy and clear.
- When listening to the lessons, do not pause and do not rewind. Then you tend to copy everything word for word. That defeats the purpose of writing it down. If you don't pause, you force yourself to summarize in your head and jot down things that really matter. Not every word is important. So don't write everything down. You could also summarize everything completely afterwards, that you write everything neatly.
- Use coloring, sticky notes and highlighters. This way you make it attractive to yourself, and you can remember important/difficult words.
- Do not write complete sentences, but key words with the (brief) explanation next to them. Writing whole sentences is not helpful. Not even reading your notes.
- Make sure you are in a quiet and clean environment without distractions. And also without a phone.
- Arrows, dashes, bullets make your notes clearer.
- If you want to write down a hadith/verse later in completeness, write down the time it is quoted and look it up later. Don't write everything immediately.
- If there are different opinions on an issue, write down these opinions with the names of the scholars associated with them and which one is the strongest.
