Great advice, all of it! If you have a family or a partner. Just because you are at home does not mean "can you just put on a wash". Build rules into e

Great advice, all of it! If you have a family or a partner. Just because you are at home does not mean "can you just put on a wash". Build rules into engaging with the family. You are working. You are not to be disturbed. If you choose to 'come out' of your office and engage with the family then that is your choice. Emergencies are acceptable interruptions ;) This was one of the toughest parts for me. It was really, really, really difficult to get my partner to understand these boundaries. (And my sense of guilt played into this too. If she was carrying heavy groceries into the house, how could I not go and help her, even if she didn't ask me to?) One thing that somewhat worked was asking her to consider the following before interrupting me: "If I was working in a 'normal' office job, would you pick up the phone and call me about this?" If the answer was "yes" then it was okay to interrupt me. If the answer was "no" then it was probably something that could wait until my next bathroom break or dog-walking break. Most partners understand that they can't phone into your workplace for every little thing ("whoa, the store is having a crazy sale on rutabegas this week!") that pops into their heads. On my part, I had to understand that in many senses just as she was intruding on my work life, I was intruding on her home life by bringing work into it. She had never worked from home and home was always a place of relaxation and family togetherness, and I had to understand that I was asking her to shift her notions of that. I was seriously considering getting an "ON AIR" light -- you know, like a DJ would use at a radio station to signal nobody should come into the room -- at one point. Had I not transitioned back into a more standard office job we probably would have!