I know this question is flawed in that each PhD is different, people work at different rates and that academic work isn't measured on a per hour schedule...BUT...how much work should I be doing?

I've just started a part-time PhD in the humanities and I have a lot of prep to do for my 2nd meeting with my joint supervisors in 2 weeks time. I would be interested to know how people seperate work/academic work and spare time. I'm the kind of person who can work until they burn out: I fell asleep on the sofa today at 5pm, so at this early stage I think I need to learn when to forget the PhD and not succumb to the 'must work' mentality! Will the PhD ghost follow me until I submit...bringing guilt to every half an hour spent watching that Simpson's repeat I've seen 10x before?

The question is not so much how much you work as how good are you organized? What percentage of experiments goes wrong and why? How concentrated are you when you are working? Have you read enough literature to really know what you are doing? How good are you/the people in your lab at trouble shooting.

Our other PhD student is working her ass off (can I write that?), but it is getting her nowhere, because she won't take advice from the postdocs (who are getting royally annoyed after answering her questions- just to find out she's not listening to their advice anyway), she changes methods without any reason- although the original method works fine, and generally makes many mistakes.

Thanks! I guess as I get further into the PhD and get my direction from my sup and advice from other PhD students I'll be able to be more efficent with my time and energy!

I have tried to make it a 9-5 thing, learning techniques as it is my first few days. I got a suggestion from my supervisor that it's not really enough.

I am upset coz I don't know what to do yet. I do as much reading as I can but I already have a feeling that I don't have time for anything else except reading and lab work...