Hi Everybody,

I am starting a PhD at the end of this month. I have been trying to think about what kind of general schedule i should have. I know in reality, because it is science, and with experiments, i could be staying very late unexpectedly.

However, as a general rule, i am trying to think about what time i should spend at uni. I can get there by 8.30am to properly start at 9am. I was once told by a Professor quite negatively that "you can tell that some of the PhD students just don't want to be here, you can see they don't want to come in and they are only hear from 9-5. If you want to make a difference you have to put in the time."

So i have been thinking, what time do i suppose to leave? i know lots of the Professors at my uni stay until about 6pm. But in my schedule it would mean i would have to get a late transport, and wouldn't be home until about 7.30pm- which doesn't leave much time to do all the normal things like eating, exercising, showering. When i was an undergrad it wasn't a problem- i hardly ever slept, but i am taking sleep seriously this time around.

I am very happy to stay until late at night on nights when i am doing experiments and things like that, no problem. But as a general less-than-active kind of day, what time should i think of packing up, 5.30pm?

Ender

Congratulations on starting a PhD Ender. You ask the same question that all new PhD students (including me) seem to ask when they first start. To begin with, you probably won't have much to do - and this is entirely normal!
The first week is mostly about sorting out all the admin stuff, learning your way around and having the initial safety talks etc. It is important to do as much reading around your research area as possible from the start, as later on you may find yourself short on time for reading.
Depending on your project/supervisor, you may not get into the lab straight away, and will be spending a lot of time in the office/study looking at a computer screen. This will seem quite uncomfortable at first, as you'll be watching other PhD students going back and forth from the lab and typing away frantically at their desk, looking incredibly busy. You may feel under pressure to stay late at uni, because other PhD students probably won't go home until 6/7pm. My advice to you is don't stay late because you think you have to. If you know you're not going to get any more reading done because you can't concentrate any more, then the best thing to do is go home, relax/rest etc. and start the next day refreshed and ready to go again.
Working 9-5 is perfectly reasonable, as it's good to have some sort of structure to your day, and get into a good habit of coming in at the beginning of the working day. It's all about using your time effectively - quality over quantity. I know some PhD students who spend loads of time in the office/lab, but don't actually get any work done. I also know a couple of supervisors (including my own) who understand that if I dedicate a day to reading, that I can work better at home than at uni.
When it comes around to doing experiments then it's mostly down to your own time management; do whatever works for you. Although sometimes certain experiments have time constraints of their own. For example, I can't start my experiments earlier than 9am, but I can come in as early as I like to set up. Other experiments must be finished by 7pm as the lights go out. Finally, some experiments go wrong and have to be repeated straight away, forcing you to stay late. Depending on the work you have to do, the time you spend at uni can vary massively from day to day, week to week and month to month.
I hope that helps you in some way. Good luck!

Hey Ender! Very good advice from Baseline. When I started I did pretty much office hours, usually about 9-6pm. I stuck to this throughout most of my PhD, but did start to stay later some evenings and came in most weekends when the work really kicked in and I needed to get things finished. Most of the PhDers in our department stick to office hours and seem to get by fine doing that, although there did used to be a fair few in at weekends when I came in. You'll probably fall into a routine quite naturally anyway, but I think it's important to be flexible. If you're having a productive day then stay and make the most of it, if not then pack up and head home/to the gym or whatever you like to do. It is important to make sure you have enough free time so that you really are able to focus during the hours that you do work on the PhD. Some people also work better at certain times of the day, so you might want to work around that as well. Try not to compare yourself to others- as already mentioned, some people stay at the office around the clock but spend a lot of time doing nothing very much! Good luck with it, KB

I don't work 9-5 mainly because a lot of the time I work from home so I feel more comfortable setting my own hours which are usually 11-7pm. On days when I go into uni I am there from 10.30-5.15 this is because I live quite a long way from uni and the train takes ages (2.5 hours!) so to get in for 9am would mean getting a train at 6.30am which unless I never do unless I absolutely have to be in at that time. Fortunately my supervisor is happy with me working from home and coming in when necessary to run experiments etc (I do computer modelling but can only do it on my uni computer).

From what I've observed about other people in my office some do 9-5 others come in a bit later and stay a bit later but still do around 8 hours. There are some who will come in for an hour or 2 then go home to work. If you are having one of those days where your brain gives up at 3pm and you don't need to do anything in the lab then go home for the day, you may find that you can get a bit of reading done at home or just have a bit of extra relaxing time and then work a bit longer the next day.

I attended a time management course earlier this year and the key piece of advice given was to try and maintain the 8/8/8 rule of splitting up your time. So this would be 8 hours sleep, 8 hours work, 8 hours leisure and to take weekends off - basically maintain a normal schedule where possible. Obviously there will be times when this won't be possible e.g. extra lab work, deadlines etc and work time may encroach into one of the 8 hour chunks of time but this should be the exception.

I try and keep the 8/8/8 schedule. I also use the mytomatoes/pomodoro to make sure those 8 hours of work are being used productively, so if I don't make it past my goal (usually 10-12 a day) then I have to eat into my leisure time, hence motivation to work harder in my 8 hour work day!

The quote ("you can tell that some of the PhD students just don't want to be here, you can see they don't want to come in and they are only hear from 9-5. If you want to make a difference you have to put in the time.") is quite representative of some academics' opinions of postgrad students, that they're there to be working 24/7 largely to further the academic's research profile. My sups have never encouraged me to overwork and value leisure time, so don't take comments like that too much to heart. Leisure time is important, and I never work well when I'm tired and stressed so value my leisure time and getting enough sleep.

Hi there, I keep a time sheet of my life. It is very broad and the range of activities are usually reading, writing, EngD admin. Then for leisure, exericise and sleep. I found that I was overworking without realising it and my life was getting a little unbalanced.

My 'new' approach is that study is for the long haul and burning out is a real concern. I also noticed that when I did stop studying the world seemed not to end!

Take it easy!

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Thanks everybody, i'm really seeing the value of these forums now! all of this has been so helpful.

I think the 8/8/8 approach is a good suggestion, and i had never even heard of the pomodoro technique, i wish i had known about that earleir, it looks good. The comments about quality over quantity is really useful- and to get that a balance is really important. I had been wondering about the risk of burn-out without the right kind of balance. I wasn't sure if PhD students were allowed to even utter the words "life-balance", but i am glad it is something we can try to aim for, even if we have to be our own enforcers against the will of supervisors. I think i will start with 9-5 at the begining like many of you have said. If i find it fits okay without too much exhaustion i will try to stay until later in general. Working late for experiments i have no problem with, and staying later when the day is productive is a good idea.

I know that some weekends i will have to spend time in the lab because of long processes in the clean room which have to be done without interruption, but hopefully that wont be every weekend!

I find that 9-5 doesn't work for me really. My approach is to ensure that i spend (at least) 35 hours a week on my PhD. So, some days i might not hit the office til noon and i might leave at 5. But as long as i work for 35 hours during that week, then that is acceptable. I have realised that i am not the sort of person that can wake up at 7am everyday unless i have a meeting a 9. Even when i worked in a real job, with flexitime i regularly didn't turn up until 1030. It just doesn't suit me. I need sleep.

On the other hand, i know that i quite like working at the weekend (yes i'm crazy!). The office is quiet so i can play my music without having to wear headphones. I am not distracted by other people wanting to talk to me and there are no meetings organised or teaching commitments. So, i tend to do 1 full day at the weekend, and then a couple of half days during the week. I only go above the 35 hours a week if i have deadlines approaching (as i do tomorrow!) in which case i have been at work yesterday and am in the office right now. Though i plan to take Tuesday off to compensate and will be leaving early on Friday as well.

Oh and i use the pomodoro technique when i can - though when others are in the office it can be tricky to go 25 minutes without someone wanting to chat about something or other!

But basically.. my advice is to figure out what works for you. I use the "i'll work when i'm working well and i'll take a break when i'm not being productive" approach. (The break i have taken to write this is part of my 5 minutes between pomodoros!) If you force yourself into a schedule that doesn't suit you then you can start to feel guilty about it. I know people who are constantly working but don't achieve much output. I definitely work for less time than them, but i would say that my output is usually something tangible and useful. And i'm much less stressed out :-)

I don't think there's a set rule about leaving times as it varies from place to place. I agree with others, the best thing is to find out what's best for you. You may need to try a few things to see what works best and you may find that what works next month might not work as well in 2 years time.

Personally, I have always had Gantt charts so I work from a goal oriented approach. I wake up earlyish and work until 1) my concentration starts going, 2) I've accomplished my goals for the day or 3) I've just had enough. I don't have set times and work weekends and evenings when needed but avoid as much as possible as we all need some rest. It's still hard going and definitely not for everyone but it works for me. It's worth noting that I can work from home and I prefer to so I don't get interrupted very often ;-) I can't concentrate when there's a lot of chatting, phones, etc so isolation is my best friend right now!

It might be worth considering what you already know that doesn't work for you?

During my PhD I used to work 9am-6pm weekdays and a few hours each day at the weekend. I am now doing a postdoc in Japan and tend to work 9am-10pm, so I think it depends on your supervisor and institution.