I'm a mother of twins, a wife, co-owner of Zahra's Oriental Dance Studio and I write one blog post a day for this site. I also sew clothes and costumes for myself and my kids, am preparing for homeschooling next year and still have to find time to do housework and cooking.
My life is not unique. Everybody has an extremely busy life these days and finding time to practice is hard. That's why I'm an advocate for practicing/drilling anytime, anywhere you can.
Here's a few things I've come up with...
Having breastfed twins for nearly 4 years, I have spent a lot of time either lying down in bed or sitting on the couch. I found that you can practice undulations going up and down while lying down or sitting. Concentrate on each individual muscles you descend and ascend. Obviously it's not as good as practicing standing up, but it's better than doing nothing. Also, as you can't see yourself in a mirror, it forces you to feel what you are doing and not just see. I always tell my students when they are learning a new move that I'd rather they do it correctly, using and feeling the correct muscles, than doing it wrong but getting a big movement.
Something else you can do while lying down or sitting is crunching your obliques. You concentrate on using your obliques to pull your hip up towards you ribcage. This helps with isolations. You have to think about not moving the chest and concentrate on just using the obliques to pull your hip up (always remember: it's hips to chest, never chest to hips). Also by eliminating the legs from the movement, theirs no cheating. You can't use your legs to create the hip movement.
When you are stuck in traffic you can practice chest slides, lifts and drops, and circles. I don't recommend doing this while driving!!! It's for when you are stuck in traffic. Your hips are kept in place by your seat and so you have to isolate the upper abdominal muscles to create the movement. If you are a beginner and struggle to isolate the chest, you can keep your hands on the steering wheel to ground you more and concentrate just on what your chest is doing.
Shimmies!!! There are so many ways to practice shimmying in your day to day routine. Anytime you find yourself standing still, start to shimmy. This has become the norm in our studio. A little while ago, a group of us were standing outside discussing something after class and I suddenly realised everyone in the group was shimmying. I find myself shimmying while waiting in queues at the shops. Confession: when I was a high school teacher I had to do the most soul destroying thing ever - invigilating. To make the time pass, I would do a slow shimmy walk, hagala or whatever traveling move up and down the aisles. The girls were so engrossed in their exams that they didn't see me, and the other teachers just ignored my eccentricities.
Then of course there's the "Kitchen Baladi". Here is where you practice improvising while cooking. Put on some music and you have to dance your way around the kitchen as you cook. If you are standing at the stove, then you can do movements on the spot, but as soon as you need to get the next ingredient you have to travel. I love doing this.
There are many other ways that you can practice during your every day, mundane tasks. It makes them easier to get through and gives you that extra bit of practice.