Hi Leanna. May I ask how old you are?

I studied for a social science masters for one year and achieved a very high distinction mark.

Since I was doing it full time (i.e. no job, no kids) I treated it like a job. I'd get into university (mentally I HAD to separate university from home) at about 8.30am every weekday morning and leave at around 5pm. I'd take an hour for lunch and spend about two hours a day procrasinating. So all-in-all I probably worked for about 5 hours per day working (although obviously some days I'd work really well and get tonnes done and others I just wouldn't). And I had every weekend off.

I set myself daily aims, but only with the aim of smashing them. So if I had a 7,000 word essay to do over 7 weeks, I'd break it down into what I needed to do to be finished dead on time;

- 1,000 words per week
- 200 words per day
- 40 words per hour

I'd always make sure that I did my daily target even if I went back and re-wrote or completely deleted it at a later date.

I always made sure I compartmentalised my work as well. So although I had between two and four modules running at once, I would never do more than one assignment at any one time so that I could keep my mind focused and not get confused by literature etc.

I also didn't look to the long-term (which may be terrible advice but it worked for me). So I didn't start my MA thinking 'I want a distinction'. I would just make sure that what I wrote each day/week/month/assignment was as good as it could be and then whatever happened happened.

So my experience and advice about getting a distinction is;

- separate work from home
- treat the masters like a job as much as possible
- set yourself short-term goals
- don't work on more than one assignment at a time
- don't focus on the long-term too much

Thanks for the comments. I sometimes work on Sundays because I get very bored at home and would rather be doing something productive than watching songs of praise. But generally I tend to work Monday-Friday 9-4 and then have weekends and evenings completely off.

I have just started a social science PHD.

For the first nine months I have to do my literature review which involves reading lots and lots and lots.

At the moment I am working (reading) from 9am until 4pm. I thought this wasn't much but the other PHD students that have either just started their first year like me or are going into their second year only work for about four hours max. a day.

I don't see how they are going to manage to do a literature review working so few hours in a day.

How many hours a day do or did you spend working in your first year? And was it enough?