Written By: Amina Abdelhalim

It’s that festive time of the year again! A time of celebration, family gatherings, lights and decorations at every street corner, love, happiness and spirituality… If you’re still in your teens though, it’s also an entire month of never waking up before 3pm and spending the entire day in front of your computer screen feeling like a brainless zombie until the adan.

Well not this time! Stop hitting that refresh button and log out of Facebook; let’s do more than just survive until the sunset. Here are a few tips on how to productively kill time before iftar.

1) Have a spa day at home

1) spa day

Everybody deserves a bit of self-love; you should treat yourself every once in a while. You don’t necessarily need an overpriced fancy treatment in a 5 star hotel to do so; you can just turn your own house into a private spa! Dig up different facial mask recipes, do your nails, straighten your hair, try one of those make-up tutorials on YouTube and dress up so you can show up to iftar looking like a star!

2) Have a movie marathon with friends:

2) movie marathon

Invite some friends over in the afternoon, a few hours before maghreb, and have them bring along their favourite movies or series. What better way to spend the day than to get nostalgic and watch five consecutive hours of Harry Potter or F.R.I.E.N.D.S, while occasionally having someone whining about how hungry they are?

3) Help out with the cooking:

3) help out with the cooking

If (like me) you barely know how to make an omelet, this is something you should definitely try. Help your relatives prepare iftar; they can teach you some basic cooking skills like making rice, salad or pasta. In exchange, you can wash the dishes, keep the kitchen clean and set the table. It will allow you to spend time with your family, while learning to do something new and essential.

4) Spend the day reading:

4) spend the day reading

No need to shout “boo, nerd!” at the sight of this tip; reading can actually be fun! The reason why we’re repulsed by this activity is because we associate it with all the soul-crushingly boring books they make us read in school. But reading can be anything, from romantic or action novels, to comic books, magazines and even cheesy fan-fiction you find on the internet! Since we’re on summer vacation and free until 7pm, why not dedicate some time to finding something you actually enjoy reading?

5) Clean-out day:

5) clean out day

It does not necessarily mean cleaning your room! Pick one day where you’ll spend time deleting useless old files from your computer, pictures you don’t like from your phone, old messages, songs you never listen to…

But maybe also cleaning your room. You are not a pig; it is not right for you to be living in your own filth.

6) Join some kind of course:

6) take some kind of course

When we’re busy, time passes by much faster. So why not use this month to find something you love doing and use it to help you through your fast? Always wanted to learn how to paint, speak Spanish or do pottery? Sign up for a course! It’ll keep you busy for a couple of hours every day and you might even make some new friends who share the same interests.