That's tough. One option is to spend an hour a day on it after work. Progress is slow. But slow but steady is better than nothing. Planning on how you can make small tasks helps find the motivation. It's less overwhelming to create a form with one element than a whole app.

Other options are to work on it during your commute (if you take mass transit) or during your lunch break.

First, change your expectations. You don't have a full 5 hours a day you could be spending on your project - you have a family, and you can't expect to be able to ignore them all evening. If you start out by thinking you should be able to do 5 hours of work, you'll always end up disappointed and unmotivated. I find that if I expect rapid progress and don't get it, I'm never happy about how the project is going, but simply readjusting my expectations gets my motivation and satisfaction up.

Try telling yourself you should be able to do about 1 hour of work a day - find the best time to schedule that hour given your family's schedule, and try to get the most out of it when it works out. Maybe try scheduling a longer chunk of time on a weekend, if possible.

This is not based on anything I have read, but I find it works for me for difficult projects. I keep a small log for the project. If I do nothing else, I at least update this log with a date and problem/issue. Even if that issue is simply "I'm too tired". This I find instantly gets me working on something smaller and puts me into troubleshooting frame of mind.

Choose an hour or 2 per day that you can sit down and work on your project. Block it off and don't let anything get in the way. I'm doing the same thing as you and it's slow going but any progress is better than nothing. I find the mornings before everyone else is up is the best time to work on things but you have to be diligent about getting enough sleep if you do this. Not getting enough sleep destroys any sort of morning work time.

I can't say I've looked in detail at everybody's answer, but it looks like the trend is to focus on potential for improving the effective use of your spare time. In this case spare time would be any time that hasn't been "blocked off" for your day job or your family. I think the family thing is pretty much immutable - you've chosen to have a family, and arguably you have a responsibility in that regard, not to mention, of course, a desire to spend time with them and of course, in the long term time spent with family can only be a good thing.

So ... your job. Tim Ferriss in his popular book The Four Hour Work Week suggests critically analysing the time you spend at work, and in particular, the time that you actually spend adding value for your employer. If it turns out that you're spending three hours a day actually doing real work, well then clearly, apart from life's necessities like eating and ablutions, the rest is simply ... wasted. That's a lot of time that could be spent on your project. I'm not suggesting that you only work three hours a day (remember: "work" here means real value add), but I'm willing to bet that it's not eight hours.

Once you've figured out your real daily input, the next step is to convince your employer that you can do whatever you're doing at home, or at least somewhere "away from the office". This is the tough part for most people because it involves a pitch. The fact is, though, if you can prove that you're delivering as well as you are at the office whilst at home, the pitch is simple - "more time to do work since no travelling etc.". The are a variety of ways to pitch this, but they all result in your employer seeing benefits and it really isn't a difficult sell to make, especially if you're the sort of person who takes pride in your work. The purpose of this is to be able to spend time on your project without it being too obvious - remember, this is time that goes wasted every day due to interruptions, water-cooler conversations and other typical work-place distractions, so it's not like you're "stealing" from your employer; you're just being more effective to both your and your employers advantage.

1. block out time to work on your stuff, make it known to your family members that these are your "work hours". In the past I have blocked out between 12-22 hours per week. How much you do is up to you. Make sure you leave sufficient time for your family though.

2. work more efficiently by using GTD and/or pomodoro techniques, the trick is to get yourself in the "flow" state as much as possible, and minimize distractions in whatever way works best for you.

3. This is a non-intuitive one, and I am not sure it works for everyone, but in my opinion a big one: work more efficiently at your job. In my experience: Working more efficiently and being in the "flow" state consistently at my job gets me through the day with less stress and I end up with more energy and feel refreshed after I get home.

4. Eat well, and do not work hungry. The importance of this cannot be stressed enough.

5. Sleep well. This is as important as eating well.

I hope some of it is useful to you and good luck!

There are 3 areas you can address that will each help you complete the project:

1. The project itself

The first thing to do is to pare down your project to the absolute bare minimum that could possibly be useful. Now you've got your real project. Put everything else on a "nice to have" list and forget about it.

Once you've done this (and be really ruthless), estimate the time it will take to do this simpler project. If the time is more than you're likely to find in a year, scrap the whole thing. You'll never finish it, so you're wasting your time.

Who will the project benefit? Just you? Just a few people? Scrap it, and find something else to do.

Right, now you've got a real, lean project that's worth the effort.

2. The task backlog

Generate a prioritised list of tasks that you can complete when you have time to work on them.

You don't need to generate the whole task list all at once - just make sure the highest priority items are broken down into small enough jobs that you can tackle them when you have the opportunity.

One way to do this is to create a list of the main features that your project needs in order to be complete. Put the most important near the top. Estimate the time it will take to do the top couple of things. If the estimates for the feature comes out at more than 2 hours, break the feature down into smaller chunks and revise the backlog. Rinse and repeat.

3. Making time to work on the backlog

Other answers cover this better than I could.

Perhaps open up the project to allow collaboration. This could move the project forward.

However, as simple as going from a team of 1 to a team of 2, the infrastructure to support it could be compelx to setup, initially.

Good luck!

1. Right expectations: Fix 2 days in a week (and 8 hours perhaps on weekend) to spend time on your own side work. So you and your family'll be having right expectations with each other. Or you can increase an hour everyday in your office to work on your personal project, if possible, so that you don't mess with the time your family is expecting from you. Or wake up early then your family does and spend time on your projects.
2. Less expectations: Being a human, and a family person, you have many responsibilities. Don't think to spend time only on your personal hobbies or work. Fix time to spend with your family, friends, domestic things etc. And if you are free from all of them still don't spend time for your personal work until your fixed time is over. It'll increase presence of your mind while your are away from what you want instead of what you need.

3. Do things in parallel: Be Careful. Our conscious mind is not designed to do 2 things together. And working on multiple things decrease the productivity. So what can you do in parallel;

   • VC with your relatives while you are being ready to got to office
   • Reading novel in commute.
   • Eating food in kitchen only while your wife is cooking.
   • Listening to news headlines while you are in bathroom.

4. Include your family: If possible then include your family in your side projects. E.g. photography, video shooting, DIY, crafting etc. Do the exercise with your kids. They'll feel it like a game.

5. Save time: To save more time keep you away or in limit from social websites, Youtube, mobile and others. You can do the exercise on alternate days. Buy things online instead of going to retail store. Automate all bill payments. Invite all friends together for a party instead of 1-2 family at a time.
6. Decide priorities: many things seems important but they are not. So I use priority matrix to be away from less important and non-urgent works. If you feel your work is more important than office then take some leaves every month and give time to work. Be satisfied in less salary.

Time to start family hours. So'll complete this answer later. :)