Prayer Schedule

I stopped doing the 5 daily prayers quite awhile ago for various personal reasons. I started too much too fast and ended up burning out. I'm ready to try again and I think a prayer schedule may help. The first time around I tried to do everything at once, including making up prayers, and it became too much for me. This time around I'm going to go slowly and follow steps like those below. These steps may not work exactly for those that are already muslim as you are required to make up prayers. But it should help. My thought is praying and missing a couple is better than not praying at all.

If anyone has suggestions I'd love to hear them. I am posting this here in hopes that Insha'Allah it can help others struggling with their 5 prayers.

1). Start with a prayer in the morning and one in the evening. I suggest doing Fujr for the morning, its nice and short. Just do this when you normally wake up, don't try to do it on time just yet. For the evening do a set of four rakat sometime after you get home from work. Do this for a week or so until it becomes natural and comfortable.

NOTE: If you do not have them memorized simply use a typed out direction sheet. Email me at inkblotsblueabayas (at) gmail.com if you need one (it will be Shia directions though but you can edit to fit Sunni directions). It won't take long before they are memorized.

2) Add another set of 4 rakat along with the prayer in the morning and evening. If you want, you can do this in the afternoon however most of us are not able to do that. You have the option, if you are Shia, to combine these two prayers. If you are Sunni I would suggest doing them separately since you will need to get use to doing them that way. This may take a couple weeks for it to become comfortable.

3) Once 3 prayers are comfortable add the 3 rakat prayer. Now we are getting tricky especially when you can't do a prayer in the afternoon to split them up. This will definitely take a few weeks or more to get use to. Try to split them up evenly to prevent getting overwhelmed. Do not worry about making them up, it will only cause more stress. Just keep trying till you can successfully do all four prayers without any frustration. Wait until they become part of your routine and life till you move to the next step.

4) Add the last 4 rakat prayer to your schedule. Now you have all 5. Concentrate on getting all 5 done in a day. Do not worry about whether or not they are on time. Do not worry about making up prayers. Only worry about getting them all into one day. This will take a long time. could take a couple of months. Once they become part of your life and you are comfortable with them you may move to the next step.

5) Work on praying on time. I find Fujr to be the easiest to pray on time so I will start with fujr. Some may find one of the evening prayers to be the easiest. Choose a prayer and make a conscious effort to pray it on time. Once you have done so move to the next and the next until all are roughly on time. You can concern yourself later with them being exactly on time. For example: Asr is not technically considered late until Maghrib time starts but you should pray Asr at the exact time it starts if you are able. So providing you pray Asr before Maghrib starts Asr is still considered on time. Start with this concept and then work up to praying exactly on time.

6) Make up prayers. You can start to worry about make up prayers once you have things relatively on time. If you find your self horribly stressing out over making them up, take a step back. Hopefully, you will have few to make up since you have already learned how to fit all 5 into your life and have learned how to roughly do prayers on time.

7) Pray exactly on time. Work on praying exactly at the time of day prayer is suppose to start. This is hard because we all work and often cannot pray during the day. Try to choose one prayer to pray exactly on time and work from there. This will take a long time and lots of effort.

Additional Suggestions (taken from the comments on this post):

1) Concentration. Remind yourself that you are speaking to Allah. Try doing the ayahs in arabic and then pausing to reflect on their meanings. You can also try envisioning something that reminds you of Allah, like the Ka'ba, to hold your focus.

2) Saying the Adhan is highly recommended before prayer. However, its one more thing that may overwhelm you. Instead, try using a recording before each prayer so you can stand back, get settled, and get focused.

3) There are computer wigits that offer "prayer alarms" that will play the Adhan at the right time everyday according to your zipcode. There are also Qur'an wigits which great.

4) Do not forget what the prayers mean. I suggest, once a week, that you read the English (or whatever is your native language) translation to remind yourself what you are saying. Women: This is a great thing to do while Aunt Flo is visiting. I try to do so at least twice a day during that time. Otherwise, its too hard to start praying again once the week is over. Try to keep your prayer routine during this week, it helps a lot.

If anyone has suggestions let me know. I think this is what I am going to do in order to work the prayers into my life.