The southeaster has finally backed off.
It’s mid-May in Gordon’s Bay, and the morning air carries that crisp edge that makes you grateful for a jersey. The geese are still honking. They always are. But it’s different now. More measured. Not that frantic summer chaos when the heat hits forty degrees by ten.
The Hottentots Holland mountains are clear today. No haze. Just that deep blue-grey they turn when the winter light starts to settle in. I’m on the stoep with my green tea actually staying warm for once, and my phone has three unread messages that all say some version of the same thing: “Bru, how do you do it all?”
I get this question a lot. More than you’d think. At braais. In DMs. After Jumu’ah. From other parents, from business people, from guys who can’t figure out how I run a digital agency, manage a farm that moves thousands of eggs, build software products, homeschool seven kids, keep an off-grid homestead running, and still show up for my family.
And honestly? The answer isn’t what people expect.
It’s not a productivity hack. It’s not an app. It’s not “waking up at 4am”, although the geese handle that part whether I like it or not.
A quick note before we go further: I wrote this piece a few months ago, before our seventh child, Tha’labah, arrived in March. I’ve been quieter here than I’d like, adjusting to the new rhythm, finding our footing with seven, letting my wife recover and bond with our newest addition.
The principles in this post haven’t changed. If anything, they matter more now.
The answer starts with a surah that’s only three ayaat long.
The shortest surah that carries the heaviest weight
I’m not a scholar. Let me put that out there before I go any further. I’m a tech guy who farms on the side and loves teaching my kids in between deployments. If I get a reference wrong, correct me. I’m sharing what I live, not issuing fatawa.
But Surah Al-Asr changed how I see every single hour of my life.
“By time. Indeed, mankind is in loss. Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience.”
Surah Al-Asr, 103:1-3
Three verses. Imam Ash-Shafi’i reportedly said that if Allah had only revealed this surah, it would have been sufficient as proof for mankind.
Allah swore by time. He doesn’t swear by small things.
And then the verdict: all of humanity is at a loss. Every one of us. Except those who believe, do good, and push each other towards truth and patience.
That’s not a nice motivational quote for your vision board. That’s a warning. And it rewired how I think about every single day I’m given.
When you really sit with that, “How do you find the time?” becomes the wrong question.
The right question is: how can you afford not to?
My secret weapon has five daily alarms
Here’s the thing people don’t expect when they ask how I manage everything: my entire system is built around salah.
Five times a day. Fajr. Dhuhr. Asr. Maghrib. Isha.
That’s not just worship, although it is first and foremost. It’s the most powerful time management framework I’ve ever encountered. And I’ve tried them all. Pomodoro. Time-blocking. GTD. Eisenhower matrix. You name it. None of them come close.
Here’s why.
Every few hours, no matter what I’m doing, no matter how caught up I am in a client project, a burst water pipe, or a kid’s meltdown, I stop. I make wudu. I stand before Allah. And I reset.
I’ve sat in corporate environments where people pay consultants thousands of rands to teach them “daily standups” and “sprint retrospectives.” Bru, we’ve had this built into our deen for over 1400 years. Five check-ins a day. With the Creator of everything.
Between Fajr and Dhuhr, that’s my focus block. Code. Client work. The stuff that needs my sharpest thinking, while the morning is still fresh and the southeaster hasn’t properly kicked in yet.
Between Dhuhr and Asr is admin, emails, and farm logistics. Asr to Maghrib is family time. After Isha is learning.
I don’t always stick to it perfectly. Some days the solar inverter throws a fault code at 9am and the whole schedule goes sideways. But the bones are always there. The prayers don’t move.
And when you anchor your day to something immovable, everything else finds its place.
There’s a barakah in that structure that I can’t explain logically. But I feel it. The days I honour those blocks feel longer, fuller. The days I don’t? Time just bleeds away.
Take advantage of five before five
The Prophet ﷺ said something that I think about almost every morning when I hear those geese kicking off before Fajr:
“Take advantage of five before five: your youth before your old age, your health before your sickness, your wealth before your poverty, your free time before your becoming busy, and your life before your death.”
Reported by al-Hakim, authenticated by al-Albani
Five countdowns running at the same time. And most of us don’t notice until one of them hits zero.
I’m in my thirties. I’ve got my health, alhamdulillah. I’ve got seven kids who still think I’m cool. Give it a few years. I’ve got businesses that are growing. I’ve got time.
But I know that window isn’t guaranteed. I’ve seen guys my age get sick overnight. I’ve watched businesses collapse in a quarter. I buried my rooster last month and had to explain death to a four-year-old standing in gumboots in the garden while the mountain fog rolled in.
Time is not promised. So I refuse to waste it.
The art of saying no and meaning it
Here’s something nobody tells you about managing a lot: the skill isn’t doing more. It’s doing less.
I say no constantly. To projects that don’t align. To meetings that could’ve been a voice note. To opportunities that sound exciting but would pull me away from what actually matters. To social obligations that drain more than they give.
Every yes to something unimportant is a no to something that matters.
Every hour I spend on something that won’t matter in a year is an hour I didn’t spend with my kids, in the Quran, or building something that lasts.
People see the output and think I must be grinding 18 hours a day. I’m not. I’m probably working fewer hours than most people in corporate jobs.
The difference is that every hour has intention behind it.
I’ve cut the fat. Ruthlessly. I hardly watch series. I barely scroll social media. I don’t sit in traffic because we moved to Gordon’s Bay and built a life where almost everything happens on our property or within a 10-minute drive.
Those aren’t sacrifices. Those are choices. And they buy me back hours every single week.
Intentionality is the whole game
There’s a hadith that sits at the foundation of everything in Islam:
“Actions are judged by intentions.”
Sahih al-Bukhari, 1
It’s the first hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari for a reason. It’s not just a spiritual concept. It’s practical.
When I wake up for Fajr and I make my intention for the day, that day has a direction. When I sit down to work and I consciously say, “Bismillah, this is for my family’s provision,” that work carries weight.
When I teach my kids something on the farm, whether it’s how to check the geese for eggs or how a solar panel works, I’m not just filling time. I’m building people.
The opposite of intentionality isn’t laziness. It’s drift. And drift is where time goes to die.
You don’t have to be lying on a couch scrolling reels to waste time. You can waste it being “busy” with stuff that has no purpose behind it.
I’ve been there. Years ago, before we made the move to Gordon’s Bay, I was busy all the time. Running around. Meetings. Projects. Hustle culture nonsense.
But when I looked up, I couldn’t point to what it was all for. The hours were spent, but nothing was built.
That’s when I started asking a brutal question about everything on my plate: “Will this matter on the Day of Judgement?”
Not everything has to be “Islamic” in the obvious sense. Providing for your family is worship. Building a business that employs people is worship. Growing food is worship. Teaching your kids to think is worship.
But mindless busyness? That’s just noise.
The farm teaches you things a boardroom never will
Living off-grid on a homestead near Gordon’s Bay has completely recalibrated how I experience time. When you grow food, you learn patience in a way no productivity book can teach you.
Compost takes months. Seedlings don’t care about your deadlines. The geese lay when they lay, not when your spreadsheet says they should.
But here’s what’s wild: that patience isn’t passive. It’s active.
Every day on the farm, there’s something to do. Turn the compost. Check the water levels. Fix the fence the goats somehow got through again. Move the chickens. Harvest what’s ready.
Time on the farm is never wasted because the work is always connected to something real. You can see it. You can eat it. You can hold an egg that didn’t exist yesterday and know that your morning feeding routine made that happen.
I think that’s what’s missing for a lot of people. They’re disconnected from the results of their time. Sitting in an office doing things that feel abstract. Working toward goals that someone else set.
Of course time feels like it’s slipping away. It’s not connected to anything you can touch.
“And it is He who has made the night and the day in succession for whoever desires to remember or desires gratitude.”
Surah Al-Furqan, 25:62
The cycle of day and night isn’t just physics. It’s a gift designed for remembrance and gratitude.
When you live close to the land, you feel that. You watch the sun set behind the mountains over False Bay and you can’t not be grateful. The Hottentots Holland go pink, then purple, then dark.
And another day is done. And either it counted, or it didn’t.
Involve your kids or lose them to screens
One thing I tell every parent who asks how I manage with seven kids: stop separating “kid time” from “productive time.”
They’re the same thing.
My kids are part of everything I do. Thauban is getting into coding. The older ones help on the farm. We read Quran together in the morning. They see me work, they see me pray, they see me fix things when they break.
That’s not lost productivity. That’s the whole point. That’s the legacy.
When Khawlah asks me a question while I’m busy, I’ve learned to stop and answer most of the time. Because the window where your kids want to talk to you is shorter than any business deadline. And it doesn’t reopen once it closes.
Homeschooling, or unschooling, which is closer to what we do, looks chaotic from the outside. But it means every moment is a potential lesson.
The dead rooster became a lesson about death, qadr, and the cycle of life. The burst pipe became physics and problem-solving. The geese are just comedy. But comedy matters too.
The morning adhkar changed everything
If there’s one practical thing I’d tell anyone to start with, it’s this: do your morning adhkar before you touch your phone.
That’s it. That’s the hack everyone’s looking for.
The morning remembrances. The duas of protection. The declarations of tawakkul. Before the notifications. Before the news. Before the WhatsApp groups kick off with their forwards.
I don’t manage it every single day. But the days I do? They’re different.
There’s a calm that settles in. A clarity about what matters.
The Prophet ﷺ told us there’s barakah in the early morning. I believe that because I’ve lived it.
The hours between Fajr and mid-morning, when the southeaster is still just a breeze, the geese have settled down, and the kids are still sleeping, are the most productive hours of my week. Nothing else comes close.
“There are two blessings that many people are deceived into losing: health and free time.”
Sahih al-Bukhari, 6412
“Deceived into losing.”
Not just wasting. Deceived.
There’s something actively pulling us toward distraction. The phone. The feeds. The noise.
Knowing that it’s a deception helps me fight it. I’m not weak for feeling the pull. I’m human. But I can choose not to give in.
It’s not about perfection
Let me be clear about something: I’m not some disciplined monk on a mountain.
I have ADHD and low latent inhibition. My brain loves a good tangent. There are days where I start with a plan and by 10am I’ve gone down three rabbit holes, none of which were on the list.
Some days the farm eats everything. Some days a kid is sick and the whole day changes. Some days I’m just tired and the couch wins.
And you know what? That’s fine.
The Prophet ﷺ told us that iman increases and decreases. Hanzalah, may Allah be pleased with him, went to the Prophet ﷺ terrified that he was a hypocrite because his state of heart was different at home than when he was in the Prophet’s company. And the Prophet ﷺ reassured him.
The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is course correction.
It’s tawbah. It’s getting back up. It’s hearing those geese at Fajr and choosing, again, to start the day with purpose.
The people who ask me “How do you do it all?” are usually comparing their behind-the-scenes to my highlight reel.
They don’t see the burnt dinner. The argument with my wife about finances. The project that flopped. The morning I slept through Fajr and felt that sick guilt in my stomach.
They see the output. But the output comes from a system, not from superhuman discipline. And that system is rooted in something much bigger than me.
A framework, not a feeling
Here’s what separates the Islamic approach from every productivity system I’ve ever tried: it’s a framework, not a feeling.
Motivation comes and goes. Willpower is finite. But Fajr doesn’t care if you’re motivated. Dhuhr doesn’t wait for you to feel inspired.
The structure holds you up when your feelings let you down.
And the rewards aren’t just in this life. Every act of worship, every moment spent in remembrance, every hour of honest work for your family, it’s being recorded.
It counts toward something eternal.
When I frame my time that way, wasting it becomes almost unbearable. Not out of guilt. But out of awareness.
This hour is a gift. This breath is a gift. What am I going to do with it?
What I’d tell you if you asked me over coffee
If you were sitting here on my stoep in Gordon’s Bay, watching the afternoon light hit the mountain while the geese patrol the garden like feathered security guards, and you asked me, “How do you manage it all?” here’s what I’d say:
You’re not behind. You’re just unfocused.
And focus is a choice, not a talent.
Build your day around salah, not the other way around. Say no to almost everything. Protect your time like you’d protect your kids. Do the morning adhkar before you touch your phone.
Involve your family in your work. Make your life one thing, not a bunch of competing compartments.
Ask yourself, regularly and honestly: does this matter?
And if it doesn’t, stop doing it.
Get close to something real. Grow something. Build something. Get your hands in the soil. Time makes more sense when you can see what it produces.
And remember the five before five. You’re in the window right now.
Don’t waste it looking for the perfect system.
Start with salah. Start with intention. Start with bismillah.
The southeaster is dying down now. The mountain is going gold. Maghrib is soon, and I need to check if Rafiq closed the chicken coop before the geese start their evening performance.
Ya Allah, put barakah in our time. Make us among those who believe, do good, call each other to truth, and call each other to patience.
Help us honour the amanah of every hour, every breath. Don’t let us be among those who ask to go back when it’s too late.
And let what we build with our time, our families, our work, our worship, be heavy on the scales on the Day we stand before You.
Ameen.
If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear how you structure your day around salah, family, work, and purpose.
Maybe the real conversation starts there.
Disclaimer
I am not a scholar of Islam. The Quranic verses and ahadith referenced here are from authentic sources such as Bukhari, Muslim, and authenticated collections where specified. Any errors in interpretation are mine alone. Please verify with qualified scholars and reach out if you spot a mistake so I can correct it.