Finding Time to Write While Raising Children

Finding time to write when you have children running around the house can be a very difficult task. Even if you are a stay at home mom it can still be hard to find the time needed to sit down and do something you enjoy, like writing. I am a stay at home mom to three daughters and have been writing for a while now. While it can be interesting trying to find the time in a busy day to write, it is very possible. Here are a few tips on finding time to write while raising your children.

My most favorite time of day to write is while my toddler is napping and my two older girls are in school. My toddler naps for about two hours every day. So this is the perfect time of day for me to write an article or two and do several of my daily chores around the house while she is napping. I wasn't so lucky with my older two girls, who stopped napping around the age of 18 months.

My second favorite time of day to write is after all of my girls have gone off to bed for the night. I usually have all three in bed by nine o'clock so that gives me about two hours of peace and quiet to write before I head off to bed at eleven o'clock. Since my husband works nights I have even fewer distractions. My biggest distraction at this time of day are the evening television shows that I enjoy watching at night. Many times I will actually write during the commercial breaks.

If you have children in school and you take them to and pick them up from school then you actually have a great moment in the day to write........pick-up time. I do drive my older girls to school and pick them up every day. So I have about an hour each day where I'm sitting in the pick-up line at school. This is one of the easiest times of day to write. You can do this by either taking a notebook, pen and your notes to school with you. Or you can just take along your laptop, if you have one, and type away. I drive a minivan so my toddler has plenty of room to just play with her bag of toys while I work on my article for the day.....if I had not written it at naptime.

If you have older children that are in sports then you can use their practice days as a great time to write. Usually, around here, parents stay and hang out at their children's sporting practices. For my girls' soccer practices the coaches would want to talk to the parents afterwards and we never knew when the end of practice would be so we just hung out during practice. Once I started writing I quickly realized that these days of practices were very useful to my writing time. I would take my laptop and just sit and write while I was watching practice. Then if someone needed me or my daughter got injured or anything at all happened, I would be right there available at all times. It kept me productive and reduced boredom.

Another time of day, where you could write a little, is while you are cooking dinner. Just set your laptop, or notebook and pen, up on your kitchen countertop and write a little each time you are waiting for something to finish cooking. During this time of day it's easier to write if you have already done any research that you will need. That way you can just write between cooking activities instead of having to think about researching.

Your child's bathtime is a good time of day to write a little. After you have bathed them, and they are spending some time playing in the water with their favorite bath toy, you can sit there with them and just get a little writing done. This moment in the day is easiest with a notebook and pen. We wouldn't want your rambuctious little one to splash water on your expensive laptop. So stick to a pen and paper for this time of day.

While it can be difficult to find time to write when you are busy raising your children, if you get creative you will be able to find a few little moments throughout your day to accomplish this task. Whether you are writing several small internet articles or you are working on a novel that you have been writing for a year, finding time to write is an important thing for most writers. Sometimes you just need to be creative in order to find that special time of day in order to get your writing done.