About a month ago the folks at Productive Muslim contacted me about the possibility of making something for Ramadan, the month of fasting that is observed by Muslims around the world. During our quick Skype, I learned a tiny bit about Ramadan and its role as a month of spiritual reflection, and the practical details of the fast. What I hadn’t expected, and realized I had never really thought about, was how it impacted productivity. It’s apparently quite challenging to be fasting, praying five times a day, AND still have a regular work week. I was asked if perhaps I had some thoughts on how one might make something for this?

As someone who likes (or rather, can’t help) mixing my personal values with my work, I immediately wanted to have a go at it, especially in the spirit of spiritual cooperation! We were able to come up with a quick modification of the Emergent Task Planner with the following changes:

• Removal of fixed hours in the DAY GRID on the left, using the five prayer times instead, as the reference times. Sunrise and sunset vary by day and geographical region, so putting in hours w/ labeled prayer times would not have been feasible. I find it interesting to use the prayers themselves as reference points too; you’re NOT GOING TO MISS those prayer times, so I imagine they may be even better anchors for the day that plain old hours.

• Splitting the NOTES section into two, adding a RAMADAN SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS section. This is, after all, a time of such reflection, so building it right into the form makes perfect sense.

• Modifying the text provided by the staff at Productive Muslim, and making it all fit.

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p>There is only the A4 B&W size available; maybe next year we will try something fancier based on feedback. If you’d like to give it a try, head on over to The Ramadan ETP page on their website.