How do you balance commercial knitting and personal knitting?

I've been knitting this bella shawl as a commissioned project for a friend.

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of commercial knitting lately. I often get asked if I sell knitted items and I have always admitted that at this stage in my life I cannot make enough to sell because I am barely staying on top of my personal knitting projects. I spend what little knitting time that I get trying to make gifts for others and items for myself, my husband and the kids. As you can see from my making list I have attempted to carefully map out the projects that I will work on this year and the list just doesn't have room for knitting items for commercial sale.

My main daily knitting time is the couple of hours at night after the kids have gone to bed. I try to steal as many extra little moments as I can such as knitting a couple of rows while supervising bathtime or while waiting for my boy's swimming lesson to end. I would like to spend my whole day knitting but my current season of life does not lend itself to that luxury.

Recently I took on my first commissioned knit. A friend from church asked if I could knit her a shawl. When I agreed to it I was feeling on top of my making and thought I could manage it. I find myself making slow progress on the shawl and have been interchanging my time between working on it and working on a hat for my brother's birthday in a couple of weeks. I have assured my friend that I am working on the project but I have to admit that I feel bad that I cannot work very quickly and that it may be some time before she will receive the finished product.

I know that there will be a time in the future when I can knit more so maybe a commercial venture is possible in the future but definitely not now. However, I do still wonder how do other people do it? How do you manage to fit in knitting time amidst daily responsibilities? For those of you who knit for 'work' do you sacrifice personal knitting? Or do you manage a healthy balance?

Please comment with your thoughts and experiences.

Apologies if you were looking out for a 'What to knit Wednesday' post. I'm just a little too disorganised this week to pull it together.