I have had a full-time engineering job for the whole time I have played. The practice that survived is the practice that was small enough to be non-negotiable.

What works

• A fixed twenty minutes at a fixed time. Not a target of an hour that becomes zero on a busy week.
• The instrument out of its case and within reach. A case is a decision point, and decision points lose to tiredness.
• One thing per session. A single phrase, a single rhythm, a single hand position. Sessions with an agenda of five items achieve none of them.
• Ending while it is still going well. Stopping mid-flow makes tomorrow easy; grinding until frustration makes tomorrow avoidable.

What does not

Practising after midnight, which teaches your hands to be tense. Playing only what you already know, which is pleasant and produces no change. And measuring progress weekly, which is too short an interval to show anything and reliably produces discouragement.

Record yourself once a month. That is the interval at which improvement becomes audible, and hearing it is what keeps the twenty minutes going.