Hi all,

I am about to start my PhD in January, and I was just wondering whether working strictly from 9am till 5pm 5 days a week on the PhD is generally sufficient? I understand there must be times in the year where its a busier period. But how do you generally schedule you work? Do you work certain hours and then call it a day? As it is at least three years, I suspect one has to be very well disciplined, organised and have good time management skils, as well as seperate academic work from personal life?

I think it depends on your subject. I know some biology people spend all day measuring bugs in a dish (or something). In social sciences - at least for me, I just work when I need to. Sometimes I missed entire weeks, but most of the time I work over 9-5, especially now. I just plod away at work all day. After all there probably won'tbe anyone to 'tell you off' if you don't do work, its up to you to do it, so it depends on how long you need to work for you, if that makes sense!?

What Sneaks said. I'm also in social sciences and try and work for 7 hours a day and try to do so consistently. Quite often I find that I burn out before the 7 hours so if I'm honest I don't quite manage it sometimes! I can never bring myself to do much at the weekends (maybe the odd couple of hours on a Saturday morning occasionally), but know people who do. This makes me feel a bit guilty sometimes but my way of working has worked for me so far and I'm on track to submit within the three years.

I think the key is consistency, and also making sure that time spent working, largely, is focused time.

As the others have said, it does vary from subject to subject, but generally I think if you can be productive between the hours of 9am-5pm every weekday then you'll probably be fine. Plenty of people get by on fewer hours, but sometimes you might need to put a few more in to get that extra publication or whatever. I think it's good to have a daily routine but also be prepared to be a bit flexible if needs be, and you shouldn't have too much bother! Best, KB