1. Plan Out Your Project, Plan Out Your Space
Part of the challenge of a project built out of a compact workshop is working in a confined space. There's simply not enough space to have dedicated areas for each step of the process, let alone power tools. Plan out your space: have a messy area for sawing, sanding and glueups. Have a clean area, for finishing. Plan out your work flow: Start with and finishing operations that cause dust and particulate, clean up and allow time for saw dust to settle before applying stain and finish. Planning ahead of time will go a long way towards minimizing the inconvenience of tight corridors.
3. Be Kind to Your neighbors
You share a wall with the family of four next door. Your table saws bark is 105 dB, same as a live rock concert. It's going to sound like you are sawing in their kitchen. Power tools are loud, and your neighbors are going to be annoyed by them. Minimize the annoyance by using power tools at regular hours, (not at midnight), turn tools off when not actively using them, prepare your work piece so that you can finish with power tool steps in a single sitting, rather than many start and stops over the course of several hours. Also, it's probably wise to introduce your self to your neighbors if you see them walking by while you're working. Let them know what you're doing and establish quite hours with them. I didn't do this when I first started and had several angry knocks on the garage door, telling me to knock it off. Eventually I got to know me immediate neighbors, offered to make pieces for them (although they never took me up on it) and that seemed to keep the peace.
2. Everything on Casters
Get over it. There's not enough room to have a dedicated station for your table saw, nor your planer, jointer, miter saw, band saw, and belt sander. Hell, you'll be lucky if you have space to stack them on top of each other in the corner. What to do. Put your tools on wheels! Make dollies or carts that your tools can live on and strap on a set of locakable casters. The tools can be easily moved to the center of the space or outside when its time to use them and then pushed back in the corner when its time to clean up.
4. Clean up After Yourself
In a moderately sized workshop, there are enough flat surfaces and space in general to leave out a wrench, or a hand saw for later use. In a compact workshop, you may have a single small work bench or patch of floor in which to complete every aspect of your project. A wayward tool (or 10) is enough to gum up the works and slow down your progress. Putting tools away in their proper locations is an essential task to keep your project time efficient and your sanity.
5. This is not your Room, Shirt and Shoes Required
I'll admit it, this is a rule that I frequently break, much to my detriment. It's often tough for me to justify putting on socks and shoes when I'm just passing through to the back yard, or just need to find a tape measure for something upstairs. Due to this laziness I have suffer 3 notable injuries to my feet. 1) Dropped off cut o toe, nail turn black and fell off. 2) Giant splinter through the heel. Much pain was felt removing it) 3) Dropped jointer on foot: swell. And to be honest, it could be a lot worse (think rusty nails). So yeah, it may seem convenient to run in and run out with the proper footwear, but its probably not worth it.
7. Protect your Self
A compact work shop is loud, dangerous and often poorly ventilated place. Taking precautions such as wearing a dust mask, safety glasses and hearing protection are necessary to maintianing your health and enjoyment of the craft for years to come.
6.Dust your shoulder off
If your doing material removal in a confined space without proper dust collection, you going to end up looking like a saw dust monster. Do future your a favor, clean yourself off before you go into the main part of your apartment/house. Fine saw dust is like glitter, sticks to everything and impossible to remove. I've caused more than one panic attacks in my partner related to the amount of saw dust I've tracked into the kitchen, on to the couch, and somehow also into the deep recess of the our closet. So blow yourself off with some compressed, take a brush to your clothes, or just shimmy and shake until the sawdust stops fall from your body like snow. Trust me on this one.