Indies working remotely: How do you prevent interruptions from family?

I have a small 2x3 meters office ("man cave" aka "the guest bedroom") in my apartment in which all the magic happens. Calls, meetings, long hours of coding, a ton of netflix'ing when I feel like I need a break, etc.

Having your own, separate room for working is just amazing. Close the door and it's only you and your work. Open the door and you can participate in whatever happens at your place.

My girlfriend recently got a new job where she's allowed a few days of remote work per week, and because she's never worked remotely before she takes a lot of liberties to spontaneously enter my home office and distract me. Originally this led to some tension: I'm sensitive to interruption, and she's sensitive to feeling ignored, unseen, underappreciated.

The solution was to communicate boundaries. In my case, these boundaries were very easy to communicate because I have a straightforward work routine which I described in this article: I work in 90-minute sessions and then take 60-minute breaks. So with my girlfriend, the understanding we both came to was that while I'm in the middle of one of my 90-minute deep work sessions, I'm on IRL do-not-disturb mode, yet during my 60-minute breaks, I should always be gracious in spending time with her, catching up, being spontaneous, etc.

I have a room but I could not work from home, I live in HK, where space is limited and I live with family (and before you judge, my parents don't pay for us, my siblings and I pay the entirety of household expenses, rent being the biggest expense, and if you know HK has some of the most expensive rental prices in the world ).

Limited space = I am unable to have an office in my bedroom.

• Paying for my family = I am unable to move out

I tried locking the door but the noise got to me, I eventually just gave up and started going to the office everyday lol.

I play loud ass music in my office luckily i live with only my wife which she tends to drive me crazy at times and i have Low Latent Inhibition and originally diagnosed with Asperger so my attention span sucks and i get easily distracted so in my case music helps a lot i like heavy drum and bass when im coding and if the bass bothers my wife cause its to loud ill put on headphones. Also another trick i use is mushrooms i micro dose around 0.2 to 0.4 MG in the morning before my workout with machta tea and then in the evenings if im still working i vape cannabis from a leaf vaporizer when i really need to focus on one problem and it kinda silences everything else and makes it easier for me to problem solve with specific task. Yoga helps to a lot i like to tell people i have friends who take caffeine etc. but they all crash within hours but with me im working all day from 10-am to sometimes 3 or 4 am with no crash outside of breaks i take here and there i cannot complain its been working pretty good for the most part

Separate space with a door that closes, and setting expectations that I am working. If my door is closed, I am busy. If it is open, you can pop in.

I have my own office, and more importantly, i work only when my kids are away or sleeping :D

I second having a separate room. I use one of the basement rooms as my office.
By utilizing (Spotify) focus music, smart lightning for soothing vibes and the Pomodoro technique, I can focus on working for 25 minute periods.
A comfi chair, big screen make it complete.

The second part is just as important: I discuss with my kids (9yo twins, and a 3yo toddler) and wife when I'm working from home.

The last part is routine: everything just works better when you live together with kids and a busy household; blocking time and setting expectations is so much easier when you work on the same time periods on the same days.

I have 3 kids under 3 😅, so avoiding distractions is very hard. My 'office' is currently in our bedroom, right next to our baby's crib.

Some things that help me avoid distractions:

• Noise cancelling headphones
• Discussing plans with my wife so she knows when I have meetings and need to be more focused
• Write down and timebox what I'm going to accomplish - not exactly what you're referring to, but this is the most important thing for me when it comes to getting good work done. If I have a clear idea of what I need to do, I feel way more motivated, even if I have kids running in to 'work' with me 😄