I'm a junior college student doing some side projects[0] while taking 21 credits, jogging daily, going to mandatory club events, etc. Those except side projects take more than 40 hrs/week so I guess I have even less time for side projects than you.
I highly recommend you to read this talk script by Chris Wanstrath[1], one of GitHub's founders. Two of his suggestions:
- Turn off (or lower the frequency of) reading news/RSS/Twitter.
- Do a bit contribution to side project every day and get a streak. I feel John Resig's GitHub profile illustrates the point best[2].
I'm following these two suggestions on and off for a while, but I want to really do them for the whole year 2016.
And my suggestion is to go to some hackathons. You'll be amazed at how much you can get done during a weekend without distractions. Plus you meet a lot of awesome people, sharpen your skills and win prizes.