so, just out of interst tho, what time do the guys who work a lot of evenings start at - because I know loads of guys who work late or weekends but don't start till like 10am and take some weekdays off - so in the end it all evens out.

I've only ever heard of these myhtical supervisors who are tyrants demanding 12+ hour days - even friends who have moved to other labs and claim to work millions of hours - but I know that they are a bit prone to exaggeration and one day of 12 or 15 horus equates to them always working those hours

I only raise the point so that new PhD students realise that although plenty of people claim to work these hours - I've never met anyone who works them in reality -
So, we have a whole forum here- I just wondered If one person would claim honestly to work these hours consistantly for the 3 years of their project - honestly!

Just to get the ball rolling...

I start at around 8am to avoid traffic
Have a cup of coffee around 11
30 mins or so for lunch at 1 ish
Leave around 4.30 - 5.00pm
In the evening I may read a paper but never any more
At the weekend I may work for a couple of hours Sat am only if essential

Some people would say I am putting in about 20 hours too few a week!

I'll give mine too, although ths is based on when I was in the lab because at the moment I'm just doing the final write up which is different.

So my week would be Mon-Friday
Start in the lab 6:30am
Tea break 9-9:30 with a group of other PhDs
Lunch 12-1pm (ish)
tea break at 3-3:30pm home about 5pm
Head to the pub on Friday and wake up nicely hungover on saturday
Total hours actually worked about 8.5 a day excluding breaks,
and at that I'm not rushed, get home at a reasonable time, can enjoy my evenings and weekends (I almost never worked weekends).

I probably only worked (actual workin hours) a 12 hour day at the most once a month - really unnecessary in my line of work