I am about to begin my second year of Ph.D. in life science. I am also under a scholarship in Japan which requires me to finish within 3 years.

Currently, I am getting nervous about the prospect of actually completing my PhD as I am still not able to manage my time effectively between research, reading, and writing. I also feel like I am not working enough compared to others in my lab who always work until late at night. Unless I have an experiment going, I usually go back by 6-7pm (not necessarily being productive though).

I am also slowly losing my confidence over my research topic. I am not sure if this is the topic that is really worth it as a PhD or if there is something wrong about the flow of the experiment that I am not aware of. I am also starting to worry about future job prospect. This is also part of the reason why I am losing my focus during working hour and it's making me procrastinate a lot.

1. Any tips you'd like to share on how to work effectively if I want to finish my PhD in 3 years successfully with plenty of publication?
2. How do you know if your research topic is the right one for your PhD?

Do you have any papers? Do you have any major results? How much data do you have?

I would say work out how much data you actually have and how much you can use in your thesis. You can probably plot 2-3 chapter by now (preferably more) and then decide how much work you need to do. You will probably realise there is less work to be done than you think. From their you can make a plan for your final year so you are not constantly panicking.

For the second question, write about what you have data on. A thesis can be a collection of smaller works that together solve a bigger problem. If there was any coherence between the smaller projects you can easily find a problem that you helped solve.