Don't feel you can squeeze one more thing, much less any writing, into your busy schedule? Try this:

For one week, record in a notebook how you spend every minute of your day, just a typical weekday and weekend. After 7 days, categorize how you spent your time to determine where you can compress, eliminate, or delegate tasks in order to make time to write. For instance, if preparing meals at the end of the workday is chewing up too much time in the evening that you'd prefer to be writing instead, purchase more deli take-out meals, or make all your meals ahead of time on Sunday. (I once worked with a woman who made all her families' meals on Sundays, leaving her upcoming after-work evenings free for other interests.) Delegate tasks to spouses, partners, and older children to shorten the length of time chores require. Or eliminate activities altogether-- for instance, do you really need 2 hours in the morning to get ready for work, or can you use 30 of those minutes for writing instead?

I call this the "24 hour Time Budget", and you can read more about it and how it can help you find time to write no matter how busy you are in TIME TO WRITE: More Than 100 Professional Writers Reveal How to Fit Writing Into Your Busy Life: No Excuses, No Distractions, No More Blank Pages!".

Try it and let me know how it works for you!

"It's easy to get distracted if you're looking for distractions ...what I try to do is focus on my priorities and understand what they are, and commit to them. So for me, writing is a priority, and I commit to that, then distractions are less tempting." -- New York Times bestselling novelist Carla Neggers, as quoted in TIME TO WRITE