I think the title says it all : )

I normally (force myself to) take the weekends off from research work.

How about you?

Do you feel off days are important?

Far too often at the moment as I seem to keep getting struck down with horrible colds and having no energy! Also hit a bit of mental brick wall which is not good but slowly breaking it down.

My OH works shifts and often at weekends so I tend to try and work around him so we can spend his days off together. I generally try and take 2 days off a week because otherwise I think I'd go mad.

At the end of the day the PhD is similar to a job, if you wouldn't work 7 days straight in a job then why do it for a PhD? Time off is important to recharge and to have a chance to do the things you enjoy, whether that's just reading a novel, watching trashy telly or something more active. Occaisonally you might need to work longer to meet deadlines etc but that should be the exception rather than the norm. Some people seem to thrive on working non-stop but I'm not one of them, I like having time to myself to indulge in my hobbies.

Off days are absolutely vital IMO. Not necessarily weekends though.

Every weekend and bank holiday and every one of my 31 days off that I am allowed a year. I can't believe quite how much time off I get given, it works out as a total of 38 days, but I take all of it!

Days off are very important. Take up hobbies, see you family, live your life! Seriously, working every day, no matter how much you like work is so limiting. You end up with everything invested in one thing and so if stuff goes wrong in that one area of your life your whole life feels awful. By having other interests it helps spread the load. I might be having a hard time at work one day but maybe I'm in the best cricket form of my life! Or I may have been rejected from a journal but I have just mastered a complicated finger picking technique on my guitar. Or maybe my simulations crashed but meh, I'm going away for a long weekend with my wife. You get the picture.

(All just my opinion!)

i only spend about 30mins mon-thu for my research. on fridays, i spend about 1 hour to assemble the weekly findings into a coherent piece of work.

i think off days are important if ur research is *strenuous*. u need time to recharge and stuff.

however, if u're doing it more like a hobby, it wouldn't make much difference i guess. do u ever take any day off from playing games (hobby)? well i dont. :)