What sort of hours do you work for PhD? on PostgraduateForum.com

What sort of hours do you work for PhD?

CharlieC 8 posts
7 years ago

I'm due to be starting my PhD next month and wondering what sort of hours most people work? Is it possible to complete working 8:30 until 5/5:30 Monday to friday?

Tudor_Queen 2097 posts
7 years ago

Haha, I remember asking people that. Yeh, it is possible. I know people who work 2 days a week and have kids and do their PhDs. Personally, I think I could fit my PhD into those hours and fewer days a week, if I following a strict regime and was very self-disciplined. (In fact, I did used to be more disciplined in that way... but I think the PhD has a way of changing your working habits... sometimes you end up just working solidly until midnight simply because you feel like you CAN work on that particular day... especially as the day before you sat at your desk for 7 hours staring at the screen and maybe managed to write a single sentence, which you then deleted later as it was rubbish anyway...). It is pretty dynamic - you'll probably just end up adapting for what works for you (unless you have other big constraints in your life - which may actually help you get that structure and be more disciplined). But it is doable in those times yes.

CharlieC 8 posts
7 years ago

Glad I'm not the only one who's wondered that. But that's such a good point about days where I can work. I can't really work weekends because of outside commitments but yeah I guess I can see me working longer on days I can actually find a good rhythm. Although I suppose a lot depends on experiment times too.

Tudor_Queen 2097 posts
7 years ago

Hi, yeh, I think a lot of anxiety can be there at the start of the PhD, simply because you don't know what to expect (or what is expected of you). It will vary by PhDs - some supervisors actually like their students to be in the office from 9 to 5 (or other stipulated hours). When there is a structure like that, I imagine that it is less stressful because you feel like you are "coming in everyday" and therefore, you must be doing enough work (so goes the reasoning!).

Do you know about the set up of your PhD yet?

Also you are right about experiment times. In my PhD, recruitment of participants holds things up for ages (I twiddle my thumbs and the stress builds up during those times), but then when I am actually collecting the data, suddenly there isn't enough time to do everything I could now be doing (eg. coding the data as it comes in).

You'll settle in to whatever yours brings : )

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From CharlieC:
I'm due to be starting my PhD next month and wondering what sort of hours most people work? Is it possible to complete working 8:30 until 5/5:30 Monday to friday?

It's not about hours worked but what you achieve during those hours.
The world is full of tedious people claiming to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week who actually are only productive for a few hours a day.
Having said that, it also depends on what you want to get out of the PhD.
In my opinion, it is very hard to do anything hugely successful or brilliant within the hours you specify but that might not be what you are aiming at.
I don't want to talk about how many hours I used to work because I don't like the idea of equating hours worked with success but I tended to routinely dip in and out of PhD work throughout the evenings and weekends. I rarely work set hours. I tend to be a batch worker - 3 to 4 hours at a time.

Make your PhD task-based and focus on delivering those tasks. When you have done what you set out to do that day, go home and ignore the clock watchers. That would be my strong advice.

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:
Haha, I remember asking people that. Yeh, it is possible. I know people who work 2 days a week and have kids and do their PhDs. Personally, I think I could fit my PhD into those hours and fewer days a week, if I following a strict regime and was very self-disciplined. (In fact, I did used to be more disciplined in that way... but I think the PhD has a way of changing your working habits... sometimes you end up just working solidly until midnight simply because you feel like you CAN work on that particular day... especially as the day before you sat at your desk for 7 hours staring at the screen and maybe managed to write a single sentence, which you then deleted later as it was rubbish anyway...). It is pretty dynamic - you'll probably just end up adapting for what works for you (unless you have other big constraints in your life - which may actually help you get that structure and be more disciplined). But it is doable in those times yes.

Good advice there. I don't recall ever counting up my weekly hours. I have seen me work 12pm to 10pm at night and during the write-up working from midnight until 9am before crashing for a few hours and then getting up at 1pm and working till 7pm again - all over the place.

I think when you are in the zone, time doesn't matter.

I spoke to my supervisor about his expectations of hours etc during the interview. He gave me a rough indication but said he wasn't interested in enforcing anything or checking up on us. Results were everything to him and he said I should work as few hours or as many hours as I wanted because it would be my PhD to sell for the rest of my career.

What sort of hours do you work for PhD?

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