phd student work life balance

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8 Tips for Balancing Grad School and Full-Time Work

By  Liz Wasden

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Every February, my graduate program welcomes newly admitted students to an open house event to sit in on classes, meet faculty and current students, network with other prospective students, and preview what life in the program will look like come the fall semester. This past February in particular, prospective part-time master’s and doctoral students asked me questions about balancing a full-time job on campus with graduate school.

Although I ponder this issue often as an academic adviser and doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park, my answer is never as thorough or comprehensive as I would like it to be. “How do you balance full-time work and graduate school?” is a hard question. The answer is subjective, personal and dynamic. Yet while I strongly believe that there is no one-size-fits-all, formulaic approach to succeeding at both work and grad school, I’d like to share eight strategies -- which I’ve discovered by trial and error, picked up from other students, or read about in op-ed pieces like this -- that have made my balancing act a bit steadier.

No. 1: Know the ebbs and flows of your work environment. Wherever you are working, analyze when you are busiest, both over the long haul and on a daily or weekly basis. If you don’t have a strong sense of the rhythm of your workload or are starting a new job, don’t hesitate to ask colleagues or your supervisor.

In advising, for example, my busiest times are those in the middle of the fall and spring semesters -- March through early May and October through early December. Thus, when I review the syllabus of each class, I set arbitrary deadlines for myself and carve out time to work on assignments during periods when I know I will have less hubbub at work. I have a document that maps out a yearly schedule of times when I am typically busy with tasks at work and times when I can focus more on assignments and readings.

No. 2: Work smarter, not harder. By that I mean: take advantage of the tools and resources that are available to you, approach assignments strategically, and work throughout the semester rather than a few weeks before the assignment is due.

For instance, in my Google Drive, I have a “Graduate School” folder, in which I create a subfolder for each class I take. Within those subfolders, I create a separate document titled for each forthcoming assignment I will have that semester and its due date -- for example, “Sept. 24 Policy Brief” or “Dec. 10 Literature Review” or “May 11 Research Paper.” To each document, I add the assignment’s prompt and any initial thoughts I have as to what topic I may want to explore for the assignment, and what theories, conceptual frameworks, researchers or literature could be relevant. Throughout the semester, I add quotes, sources and ideas to these assignment documents. By the time my draft deadline begins creeping up, I have a significant amount of content to work with -- sometimes even a complete draft.

Another helpful tool is a citation manager . You can upload and organize articles by class, topic area or assignment and within each one, highlight relevant quotes and take notes. In addition, my calendar and my to-do list have been my constant companions throughout graduate school. I have a Google calendar associated with my work email where I keep track of meetings and student appointments (this calendar is shared with my coworkers) and a calendar attached to my personal email, where I keep track of class deadlines and block off chunks of time to complete readings and assignments.

Similarly, Evernote is an online to-do list that allows you to create “notebooks” within which you can create notes using different templates (weekly schedule, to-do list and so forth). I have a notebook called “Work,” with reminders and training notes to be turned into training documents; one for “Travel,” with a note for each trip and vacation; and one for “Grad School,” with a note for each month of the semester with a separate section for each class. One of the most helpful functions of Evernote is that you can attach photos or files and link URLs to your notes. I like to link my Google assignment documents next to each to-do item for easier access.

No. 3: Work your classwork into your professional work, and vice versa. One of the most rewarding aspects of working full-time while completing graduate school is being able to put theory into practice and bringing real-world examples and issues to class discussions. Take advantage of your anecdotal evidence and professional experience to guide your writing and research. Use assignments to develop projects or policies you may actually be interested in addressing at work, to learn about a job you might be working toward in the future, or to explore a topic you are passionate about.

In my class on student leadership development, for example, we were asked to design a program to teach students about leadership development theories. I used the opportunity to create a class with an emphasis on building leadership skills and efficacy in underrepresented minority students. While the class itself never actually took place, I communicated several of the student development frameworks and ideas to our program’s faculty members, who then implemented them into their existing courses.

You can also incorporate themes and ideas you learn in class into your work. In every class, I try to think critically and intentionally about how class content is represented in my everyday tasks. The perspectives I gained from my class on college access and choice have made me a better adviser -- one who is more empathetic to the barriers students face when beginning or transferring to college and trying to complete it. Allow the barriers between your practice and learning to become more fluid. Your experience will not only help you in your graduate studies but also make you a more well-rounded professional.

No. 4: Reflect deeply after each class. What about this class did you enjoy? What aspects challenged you? What do you want to know more about? Such reflection can help guide your curriculum (if you have more flexibility as a doc student) as well as tell you more about what kind of worker you are and help you set goals based on what you like.

After each semester wraps up, take some time to think about what you learned and how the course content contributed to your growth as a student and as a professional. This has been especially helpful for me as I think about my intended dissertation topic and methods. At the end of each semester, once the dust has settled, I write down which aspects of the class were challenging for me or came more easily to me, which topics I found really interesting and engaging, and which topics left me somewhat uninspired. Not only has the amalgamation of these reflections helped me assess where I need to improve or where there may be holes in my coursework, it has also given me a default skeleton cover letter and teaching philosophy statement.

As you reflect on course content, think also about the research methods in the articles you read throughout the semester. I read an article in my Leadership in Higher Education course and was so struck by the textual analysis the researchers conducted that I decided to take a class on the topic the following semester.

No. 5: Create small wins or achievements to help motivate you. Midsemester is prime time for a slump in motivation. I usually hit a wall around week nine, and one of the best ways to motivate myself to keep going has been to plan things to look forward to or to reward myself after small achievements. Organizational theory tells us that small goals or achievements are effective tools for motivating employees, and the same goes for overscheduled students.

For instance, I might plan an “out of office” day, or arrange a weekend getaway to a nearby city, or make reservations at a restaurant with actual metal cutlery and a friendly, calming ambience. It can be incredibly difficult to balance work, grad school and time with family and friends, but using planned downtime or outings with loved ones as a way to motivate myself has been extremely helpful for completing assignments when I’m feeling overwhelmed or burned out. I also have weekly reserved time for relaxing. Every Friday evening after I’ve finished work for the day, I stay away from my computer and assignments and take time to recuperate.

No. 6: Collaborate with different people. In your professional life and on future research projects, you will have to work in concert with a multitude of people. The best place to start adapting to different work styles and learning to collaborate efficiently with others -- while the stakes are low and mistakes are encouraged -- is in graduate school.

For both class and work projects, try not to select the same co-worker or friend in your cohort for every project. Instead, branch out! You are cheating yourself if you work with the same people project after project. While it is important to build rapport with other students who may share similar research interests, and a strong support system is vital for surviving graduate school, you can learn so much from working with different colleagues. As an added benefit, others in your classes and cohort are probably working in multiple departments on the campus, giving you the opportunity to expand your network for future work-related needs.

No. 7: Be strategic about what and how you read. It took me years to accept that it simply would not be possible to read all the weekly required readings for my classes and work 40-plus hours a week. The advice I’ll share here is the same I give to the freshman students I teach in a one-credit “introduction to the university” course: read selectively and strategically. When reading for understanding or to participate in class discussions, the most informative pieces of a research study are usually the abstract, the first paragraph of the introduction, the first paragraph of the literature review, the first sentences of the methodology section, the discussion section and the conclusion. For crafting a discussion post, I read those same sections but pay particular attention to the introduction, discussion and conclusion, and I note several quotes that either boil down the main points of the study or contribute distinctly to the topic at hand. When taking down quotes, I always add an in-text citation in my notes to save time later when I post a discussion thread or write a paper.

For an annotated bibliography or a literature review, I typically spend more time reading and taking notes from an article than I do when reading for understanding alone. This is where tools like Google documents and citation managers are helpful. You can highlight and take notes within citation managers, and start adding to your future assignments in Google documents as you read, giving you a jumping-off point when you sit down to complete the presentation or paper.

No. 8: Ask your coworkers and professors about their grad school experiences. Many of the tips I’ve picked up and the strategies I’ve learned have originated from conversations with my professors and co-workers. Not only have I learned good ways to balance graduate school and work life, but I’ve also heard stories of tactics to avoid. For example, a co-worker told me that to finish their dissertation, they lived off protein bars for several months, writing from noon to midnight and sleeping from 2 a.m. to 11 a.m. -- a schedule I’m not sure I would ever recover from.

In my experience, professors and co-workers are happy to share their wisdom and to reminisce about their graduate school days. In addition to breaking the ice, if you are in a new position or program, or creating an opportunity for bonding, discussing grad school is also an opportunity to share some context about your professional development and continuing education. That may open opportunities to get involved in new creative projects at work.

In conclusion, what does balancing work and grad school look like to you? Does it mean completing all stipulated tasks and assignments, earning a 4.0 GPA, conducting original research, publishing at regular intervals in top periodicals, and being promoted within your organization during your time in your graduate program? My goal each semester has been (as advisery as this may sound) to do my best. Sometimes that has meant that I didn’t get the grade I had hoped for or didn’t attend the University Senate meeting I had wanted to attend. Other times, it has meant earning a promotion at work, serving as a teaching assistant for a favorite former class and presenting at conferences. I have tried to give myself grace throughout my graduate program to alleviate some of the pressure that comes with trying to do it all. Do not compare yourself to other graduate students -- this is your journey.

As you prepare to enter a graduate program this fall or to continue your graduate studies, start thinking about what strategies you will adapt from your undergraduate experience or the office to graduate school. Of all the tips listed above, the key to balancing academics and work has been planning ahead and staying organized. But always be sure to keep a pulse on your mental and physical health. Even the most effective strategies will not be successful if you don’t take care of yourself first.

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Ten simple rules to improve academic work–life balance

Michael john bartlett.

1 Scion, Rotorua, New Zealand

Feyza Nur Arslan

2 Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Klosterneuburg, Austria

Adriana Bankston

3 Future of Research, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, United States of America

Sarvenaz Sarabipour

4 Institute for Computational Medicine and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Introduction

The ability to strike a perceived sense of balance between work and life represents a challenge for many in academic and research sectors around the world. Before major shifts in the nature of academic work occurred, academia was historically seen as a rewarding and comparatively low-stress working environment [ 1 ]. Academics today need to manage many tasks during a workweek. The current academic working environment often prioritizes productivity over well-being, with researchers working long days, on weekends, on and off campus, and largely alone, potentially on tasks that may not be impactful. Academics report less time for research due to increasing administrative burden and teaching loads [ 1 – 3 ]. This is further strained by competition for job and funding opportunities [ 4 , 5 ], leading to many researchers spending significant time on applications, which takes away time from other duties such as performing research and mentorship [ 1 , 2 ]. The current hypercompetitive culture is particularly impactful on early career researchers (ECRs) employed on short-term contracts and is a major driver behind the unsustainable working hours reported in research labs around the world, increases in burnout, and decline in satisfaction with work–life balance [ 6 – 10 ]. ECRs may also find themselves constrained by the culture and management style of their laboratory and principal investigator (PI) [ 11 – 12 ]. Work–life balance can be defined as an individual’s appraisal of how well they manage work- and nonwork-related obligations in ways that the individual is satisfied with both, while simultaneously maintaining their health and well-being [ 13 ]. Increasing hours at work can conflict with obligations outside of work, including but not limited to family care commitments, time with friends, time for self-care, and volunteering and community work. The increasing prevalence of technology that allows work to be out of the office can also exacerbate this conflict [ 14 , 15 ].

The academic system’s focus on publications and securing grant funding and academic positions instead of training, mentoring, and mental health has skewed the system negatively against prioritizing “The whole scientist” [ 5 , 16 ]. Research focused on the higher education sector has revealed that poor work–life balance can result in lower productivity and impact, stifled academic entrepreneurship, lower career satisfaction and success, lower organizational commitment, intention to leave academia, greater levels of burnout, fatigue and decreased social interactions, and poor physical and mental health, which has become increasingly prevalent among graduate students [ 1 , 17 – 22 ]. For instance, a recent international survey of over 2,000 university staff views on work–life balance found that many academics feel stressed and underpaid and struggle to fit in time for personal relationships and family around their ever-growing workloads [ 20 ]. These systemic issues are making it increasingly difficult to maintain an efficient, productive, and healthy research enterprise [ 23 ].

In the academic context, work–life balance needs to be examined with regard to spatial and temporal flexibility, employment practices, and employee habits. The need to improve work–life balance is recognized for researchers at all career stages [ 7 , 22 , 24 , 25 ]. While there is a growing literature providing specific strategies to cope with busy academic life [ 26 – 28 ], collating these disparate advice pieces into a coherent framework is a daunting task and few capture multifaceted advice by ECRs for ECRs. Departments and institutes need to contribute to improving research practices for academics at all levels on the career ladder [ 29 , 30 ]. PIs and mentors can promote healthier environments in their laboratories by respecting boundaries and providing individuals with greater autonomy over their own working schedule [ 11 , 12 , 31 – 33 ]. However, institutions do not typically prioritize work–life balance, leading to the loss of valuable talent in the research pipeline. The power dynamics within academia are evident now more than ever, with ECRs lacking agency at multiple time points and in controlling many aspects of their training. This may be especially true for trainees from underrepresented backgrounds, who face additional hurdles to their professional advancement in the current academic environment while attempting to maintain work–life balance. Furthermore, academia, in general, does not always value the aspects of a researcher’s job that the researcher finds important such as teaching, mentoring, and service. Thus, the experience of individual researchers regarding work–life balance will vary depending on multiple factors [ 34 – 39 ], including personal circumstances and satisfaction with aspects of life outside of work [ 40 ]. It is therefore unlikely that there is a “one size fits all” approach to effectively address work–life balance issues.

In order to support ECRs in maintaining work–life balance, institutions should support individualized strategies that are continually refined during their training. Here, drawing from our discussion as part of the 2019–2020 eLife Community Ambassador program and our experiences as ECRs, we examine the strategies individuals can adapt to strike a healthier balance between the demands of personal life and a career in research.

While many of the challenges junior academics face are systemic problems and will take a while to fix, some level of individual adjustment and planning may help ECRs more immediately and on an individual level. The rules presented here seek to empower ECRs to take action in improving their own well-being, while also providing a call to action for institutions to increase mechanisms of support for their trainees so they can thrive and move forward in their careers.

Rule 1: Long hours do not equal productive hours

One common reason for work–life imbalance is the feeling of lagging behind as a result of the present-day competitive nature of academia. This has led to incorrectly normalized practice of overwork, due to a sense of pressure from colleagues or ourselves, contributing to increasing mental health problems in academia [ 3 , 7 , 9 ]. On the other hand, keeping a balance sets one for higher productivity and creativity [ 41 ] and long-term satisfaction with work [ 17 , 18 ]. It is important to focus on the benefits of work–life balance on overall well-being and to accept that performing research and building a career in academia is a long process. Taking time off should not be associated with a feeling of guilt for not working at that moment. On the contrary, it should be seen as a necessity to have good health, energy, and motivation for the next return to work. A break can result in a boost to your productivity (rate of output) [ 42 ]. Studies show output of working hours to not increase linearly after a threshold and absence of a rest day to decrease output, as long hours result in errors and accidents, as well as fatigue, stress, and sickness [ 43 , 44 ]. It can be challenging to cut down on work hours when you feel that there is so much to get done. We also acknowledge that there are times when putting in long hours may be needed, for example, to meet a deadline; however, keeping this behavior constant might have more disadvantages than advantages in the long term.

Having flexibility in when and where you work can help you manage tasks and feel more balanced. It is important to discuss your needs with people at work and at home, in order to establish expectations and fit your lifestyle.

Rule 2: Examine your options for flexible work practices

Examine your relationship with your work, and try alternative schedules. Review your expected obligations, employer work hour rules, and offered benefits. Where possible, make use of modernization of work tools (such as remote work methods using digital technologies); working time is no longer exclusively based on in-person presence at the workplace, but rather the accomplishment of tasks [ 45 , 46 ]. The virtual office aspect can offer extensive flexibility in terms of time and location of work, reduce time spent traveling and commuting, and allow easier management of schedules and lives. Attending conferences online and giving invited talks, seminars, and interviews virtually can reduce fatigue and increase the time available for activities essential for your well-being [ 47 , 48 ]. Working remotely may not work for all or on many days of a week, but an overall reduction in travel is possible. In some instances, it may be difficult to know beforehand how much time you will be allocating to particular tasks in your new job, also some tasks such as fieldwork or labwork cannot be done remotely. Factor in workplace flexibility policies when looking at employment options and negotiating contracts. At the interview stage, ask your employer and prospective supervisor about flexible hours, options such as compressed workweeks, job sharing, telecommuting, or other scheduling flexibility to work in a way that best fits your efficiency and productivity. The more control you have over where and when you work, the less stressed you are likely to be. Once you know the options available to you, agree on a schedule based on your expectations and needs. Clear agreements on how and when to work are necessary to avoid conflict between work and nonwork obligations [ 45 ], so it is important to effectively communicate agreements with your managers, mentors [ 31 ], supervisors, colleagues, and also with your family. Having said this, in reality, ECRs may not always be able to negotiate salaries and benefits as conditions might be predetermined by an institution, a fellowship, or a PI’s strict expectations. Weigh the pros and cons of nonnegotiable job offers carefully. Remember that some constraints might be relaxed over time as your new employers build trust in you; therefore, continue the communication to find the best arrangements for your work.

As you try to reduce overworking and be more flexible with working arrangements, you will need to be very focused within the time frame that you have available. This is especially important as work–life balance boundaries become blurred if working from home. Setting boundaries is critical to success, as detailed below.

Rule 3: Set boundaries to establish your workplace and time

Setting spatial and temporal boundaries around your work is important for focusing on the task in hand and preventing work from taking over other parts of your life. When you are in the office and need to focus, make sure you can work in a quiet place where colleagues are unlikely to distract you. If you work in a shared office space, communicate with those around you to let them know your needs, or if you need complete silence, then consider working in a designated space for focused work. While working from home, some may struggle to disconnect from work, step away from screens, and set clear boundaries between digital and physical settings. Screen time needs to be managed so that remote workers do not blur the lines of work and life, as that can result in discouragement and burnout. Ask your coworkers to not demand your attention toward work after a certain time in the evening. Turn off email notifications outside of working hours. By setting boundaries, you will also set an example for your coworkers and mentees. When working at home, separating your workspaces from relaxation spaces can be helpful. This way, less clutter can decrease your stress levels, and a separated space can help you to draw a line between work and family. Even carving an area on a table dedicated to your work time can help with calm and work–life balance.

In order for your resulting work to be of high quality, diligence is key. In addition to being focused on your task, you should also establish a routine and prioritize your tasks, being able to then gain more control over your time. Learning to say no is also critical. Below we expand on these issues in the context of efficiency and productivity.

Rule 4: Commit to strategies that increase your efficiency and productivity

Many people use to-do lists and outline daily/weekly tasks, defining both work- and nonwork-related obligations that need to be accomplished. For nonwork responsibilities, devise a strategy with your family or those you live with to delegate tasks. Make sure responsibilities at home are clearly outlined and evenly distributed.

• Manage your time. Learning how to effectively manage your time and focus while at work is critical. Set a schedule to help in managing time, and do not forget to include buffer times between your plans, such as a coffee break with colleagues and a walk away from the bench or computer screen, to socialize and rest. Outside of busy periods, try to keep routines of work hours. Try time blocking, for example, check email and other social media (e.g., Slack) messages at specific times of the workday, and, if possible, arrange meetings at concentrated times during the day. This will maximize the amount of deep work that can be done during work hours. Sometimes, multitasking, for instance, running a few experiments at the same time or trying to work in between several meetings, may not result in great outcomes; have realistic plans and monotask if you find it better.
• Minimize decision fatigue. Decision fatigue refers to the deteriorating quality of decisions made by an individual after a long session of decision-making. Decision fatigue depletes self-control, which results in emotional stress, underachievement, lack of persistence, and even failures of task performance [ 49 ]. To reduce this, make the most important decisions first in your workday, and limit and simplify your choices.
• Collaborate. Workplace and home collaborations can take some of the load off and help in managing stress. Adjusting to teamwork or training a student may seem like extra commitments at the beginning, but, in the long run, they can help delegate some of the tasks on your calendar and help maintain a better work–life balance.
• Do not overcommit. Learn to say “no” [ 46 ]. Consider that accepting extra, low-impact tasks will sacrifice your nonwork time and may also take attention off your other important work appointments. Try to drop activities that drain your energy, such as nonessential meetings that do not enhance your life or career, and be efficient within this limited time with set goals.
• Discover your own strategies. Try to figure out what strategies work for you, and apply these to your life. Individuals respond differently to time of the day, physical conditions, and stress. Productivity may come with creative arrangements, and a high degree of organization may not work for everyone. Sometimes, improvisation and flexible schedules might be what you need.

As you begin to make decisions about the best way to manage your time, being strategic is key to prioritizing. You should aim to review your strategy and ability to stick to it often.

Rule 5: Have a long-term strategy to help with prioritization, and review it regularly

Having a long-term strategy that considers what you want to achieve and the timelines needed to get there can help with prioritization and deciding what to take on and what to say no to. This not only includes goals linked to your research career but also what is important to you outside of work, whatever this may be. When managing your work and nonwork tasks, see how well they align with your short- and long-term goals when you are deciding on the time and energy you need to allocate to attain them. With daily tasks, starting each day with the most important task, allocating the most productive hours to important tasks, as well as grouping similar tasks might help increase productivity and efficiency. A long-term look can help justify time spent on particular tasks, such as learning new skills, which might be taking extra time now but would help reduce stress in the long term. It is important to review your strategic goals and how well you are doing regularly, updating your strategy as needed. Consider using weekly time management charts to assess your task delegation retrospectively ( Fig 1 ). Have you been able to reach the goals you set? Did your time get taken up by other tasks? Did you use additional time to meet work goals at the expense of priorities outside of work? Are the goals you have set realistic and achievable, or do you need to make adjustments? If this appears overwhelming remember that your plans do not necessarily need to be detailed, simply keeping track of the hours spent working can be useful [ 26 ]. It is normal for priorities to change over time. Choose mentors that can help you achieve your short- and long-term goals, and consult with them regularly on your work–life balance strategies [ 31 ].

Dynamic, prospective, or retrospective weekly or monthly time management assessment charts can help researchers with improving their work–life balance by determining exactly how they spend their time. There are 164 hours in a week. Example hour allocation is shown here for academics across career stages [ 50 ]. Hours allocated will vary depending on the researcher’s disciplines (for instance, humanities versus life sciences or engineering) and circumstances such as end or beginning of semester, when approaching a deadline, or when a committee is busiest. Teaching responsibilities include course instruction and administration, including grading and evaluation. Family time includes interacting, dining, and performing housekeeping chores with family members. Research activities include performing research and literature review time. External service may include manuscript or grant reviewing and editorial tasks. Meetings may include lab/group meetings, departmental faculty meetings, or other council meetings. Self-care activities may include attending to one’s hobbies. Internal service includes department and university service. Weekends and public holidays are included in the weeks. Other tasks not included in this chart may be professional development, writing letters of recommendation, advising undergraduate students, faculty and student hiring/recruitment, marketing/public relations, fundraising, phone calls, reception/dinner, commute/travel, scheduling/planning, and reporting. ECR, early career researcher; MLCR, mid- to later career researcher; PI, principal investigator. Figure created using ggplot library in R [ 51 ].

In order to do your best in life and work, you need to put yourself first. You can do that by paying attention to your eating and sleeping schedule and engaging in activities that will keep you physically healthy and stimulate your mind.

Rule 6: Make your health a priority

You are not only defined by your work. Spending time on self-care and relaxation is a necessity in life to maintain a healthy body and mind, leading to a fulfilling lifestyle. This, in turn, will enable you to achieve peak performance and productivity in the workspace.

• Eat a healthy diet. A balanced diet with emphasis on fresh fruits, vegetables, and lean protein enhances the ability to retain knowledge as well as stamina and well-being. An option could be keeping fruit baskets in your office with your colleagues.
• Get enough sleep. Lack of sleep increases stress, and associated fatigue is linked to poor work–life balance [ 52 ]. One potential way to improve sleep quality is to avoid using personal electronic devices, such as smartphones and tablets, during your personal and other nonwork times, particularly right before going to sleep as screen time is associated with less and poorer quality rest [ 53 , 54 ].
• Prioritize your physical and mental health. Set time aside for individual or group physical activities of your choice. Schedule specific times for social activities and exercise to unwind, by arranging ahead of time with others or signing up to regular classes, making the plans harder to cancel. Using the gym at your workplace during a break can freshen you. Or you can bike or jog to work if safe to have some daily exercise. Equally important is dedicated time for your mental health. Reading a book, listening to music, gardening, many other activities, or if you prefer, regularly talking to a therapist could help you disengage from work, enjoy other aspects of life, rest, process, and recharge.
• Try meditation or mindfulness exercises. Meditation can reduce stress and increase productivity [ 29 ]; it will help you focus your thoughts and develop more self-awareness. If you are aware of when and why you are stressed or exhausted, these feelings become a trigger for you to lean into a boundary such as taking a screen break, going for a walk, or simply resting your eyes for 15 minutes before jumping back into a task or meeting. You can do meditation or yoga at home for short intervals. Do what is realistic for your life at the time and what helps you along.
• Make time for your hobbies and relaxation. Set aside time each day for an activity that you enjoy [ 28 , 55 , 56 ]. Discover activities you can do with your partner, family, or friends—such as hiking, dancing, or taking cooking classes. Listen to your favorite music at work to foster concentration, reduce stress and anxiety, and stimulate creativity [ 57 ].

While your work is important, you will be much happier if you schedule some social time into your week. This is a simple need, and methods vary from person to person, but the common goal is to increase your sense of connection and belonging, satisfaction with life, and/or energy.

Rule 7: Regularly interact with family and friends

Your work schedule does not need to lead to loss of your personal relationships. Scheduling time off to meet in-person or interact online with your loved ones in advance will make it harder to cancel plans in favor of working longer. As an example of good practice, most parents, even in academia, need to schedule their time around family responsibilities, which actually obliges them to maintain a work–life balance; they typically do not overstay at work every day, take the weekends off, and use annual leave. Meeting with friends and family will provide a chance to reconnect with them and your shared values. If you live in a country different from your family and friends, it is important to keep in touch using online audiovisual call and chat technologies. Other ways to relax include taking walks with loved ones, being out in nature, or playing board games. Social downtime can help replenish a person’s attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and is essential to both achieve our highest levels of performance and form stable memories in everyday life [ 58 ].

In addition to spending time for yourself and with family and friends, engaging in activities that are important to you, even when these activities are demanding, can bring a needed sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Rule 8: Make time for volunteer work or similar commitments that are important and meaningful to you

Many find additional engagements outside of their day to day jobs both important and rewarding. These activities would not be considered hobbies or relaxation, examples may include volunteering for the local community (e.g., at pet shelters, food banks, and environmental efforts), regional and online communities (e.g., student advocacy groups), time on boards or committees outside of work (e.g., acting as treasurer or secretary of a club), and learning a new language when you have moved to a new place. Many ECRs enjoy taking their work one step forward to volunteer with organizations focused on the societal value or impact of their work. This can help expand your perspective as an ECR working on a particular research topic, by understanding the broader picture of what you are working on and why and giving it a human impact dimension. Others may opt to volunteer in activities that are entirely independent of their research, which can provide opportunities to clear your mind for a good period of time and boost your mood. Although these activities add extra work to your schedule, if they are important to you, then you might find it difficult to find balance without the sense of achievement and reward they bring. However, when under pressure from work and home, finding time for these activities can be challenging—remember that work–life balance needs to be continually reassessed; consider taking a break if you need to and revisiting these extra commitments at a better time.

In addition to advisors and departments, institutions can take measures to support ECRs and provide them with necessary resources to thrive. They should also create a culture where asking for help is encouraged, and support for the well-being of researchers exists at their institution.

Rule 9: Seek out or help create peer and institutional support systems

Support systems are also critical to your success, and building more than one will increase your chances of success and balance overall [ 59 ]. At work, join forces with coworkers who can cover for you—and vice versa—when family conflicts arise. At home, enlist trusted friends and loved ones to pitch in with childcare or household responsibilities when you need to work overtime or travel. Seek support in academic communities and organizations who are working on mental health and well-being. For instance, PhD balance is a community space for academics to learn from shared experiences, to openly discuss and receive help for difficult situations, and to create resources and connect with others [ 60 ]. Dragonfly Mental Health, a nonprofit organization, strives to improve mental health care access and address the unhealthy culture pervading academia [ 61 ]. Everyone may need help from time to time. If life feels too chaotic to manage and you feel overwhelmed, talk with a professional, such as a counselor or other mental health provider. If your employer offers an employee assistance program, take advantage of available services. Joining a support and peer mentorship group, such as graduate, postdoctoral or faculty Slack communities [ 31 ], or working parents seeking and sharing work–life balance strategies, provides at least two key advantages: an opportunity to vent to people who truly understand your experiences and the ability to strategize with a group about how to improve your situation. A combination of these steps will help researchers to improve their work–life balance.

Finally, if your ability to effectively implement the advice in Rules 1 to 8 is constrained by the culture in your lab or pressure from the academic system, seek support from mentors, and advocate for yourself and for the change you would like to see.

Rule 10: Open a dialogue about the importance of work–life balance and advocate for systemic change

Spreading awareness and promoting good practice for managing work–life balance are essential toward shifting the prevailing culture away from current excellence at any cost practices. While major change is only likely to come about with a coordinated shift in the way that research laboratories, institutions, publishers, funders, and governments assess research endeavors at a broadscale, there is much that can be done at smaller scales to improve the culture at institutions and within labs [ 62 ]. Leverage the support of communities that empower ECRs to participate in advocating for the importance of mental well-being in academia through research and programs (see Rule 9). Discussions on work–life balance can also be initiated through seminars and courses. You can ask for, or if you plan to get more involved, organize workshops and training in your institute for ECRs. Another way to encourage collective work–life balance could be to host activities such as family and employee sports, outdoor movies, or picnic events encouraging family-friendly time and team building. Advocate for policies in your workplace that can help reduce conflict between work and other responsibilities, for example, childcare services or pet-friendly workspaces. To advocate at larger scales, you can join graduate/postdoctoral researcher associations, unions, or work councils to actively pursue work–life balance–friendly policies and employment contracts at institutes and through funding agencies. For instance, institutions and funding agencies that do not encourage the traditional gender roles allowing both men and women to take family leave, see better work–life balance, and reduced work–life conflict [ 63 , 64 ]. If the culture in your research lab constrains your ability to manage your work–life balance in a way you find satisfactory, shifting departmental and institutional attitudes and policies can put pressure on PIs to build a more supportive work culture via steps outlined elsewhere [ 11 , 12 , 31 – 33 ]. Although organizational culture cannot be changed overnight, changes in policy can go a long way in creating a culture that aids work–life balance in the academic workplace [ 62 – 64 ].

Conclusions

Most academic jobs come with flexible working hours, which can be advantageous when researchers attempt to balance the competing obligations in their lives. Yet, ECRs typically work significantly longer than the normal working hours of academic employment contracts [ 65 ]. How researchers spend their time has major impacts on their well-being, productivity, and professional scale of impact and those of their mentees, family, colleagues, and institutions in the short and long term. Academic culture has normalized and ignored overworking often at the expense of a social life, or of even greater concern, at the expense of researchers’ health and well-being. It is important for all academic researchers, institutions, and funding agencies to credit service and administrative activities, to acknowledge difficulties in satisfying work- and nonwork-related obligations in academic careers, and support diverse strategies to attain work–life balance [ 29 , 30 ]. It is imperative to examine work–life balance practices by ECRs, suggest improvements, and integrate these into employment and promotion offers. Here, we provided recommendations for ECRs to improve management of the balance between their professional and personal lives, but striking a healthy work–life balance is not a one-shot deal. Managing work–life balance is a continuous process as your family, interests, and work life change. Working long hours does not equate to working better. Regularly examine your priorities—and, if necessary, make changes—to ensure you stay on track. Ultimately, for the benefit of researchers and the important work that they do, both individuals and institutions need to make health and well-being a priority.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Inez Lam of Johns Hopkins University for valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. We also thank the facilitators of the 2019–2020 eLife Community Ambassador program.

Funding Statement

This work was the product of volunteer time and the authors received no specific funding for this work.

Educational resources and simple solutions for your research journey

PhD Work-Life Balance: 5 Tips to Help Students Manage the PhD Workload

The journey toward acquiring a doctoral degree is extremely rewarding, yet, it is perhaps one of the most challenging of all academic journeys. Every young PhD student begins this journey with a lot of enthusiasm and curiosity, harboring a dream of contributing to science and society through a dedicated work plan for PhD. However, on this long journey as a student pursues their PhD, work-life balance goes haywire.

On striving to achieve a PhD work-life balance , students often find themselves perplexed. Eventually the stressors of the PhD workload may create a dent in their dreams as the rough edges of the journey become apparent. Many students take a long time to acknowledge these ‘expectation v/s reality’ issues, and this in turn leads to anxiety, affecting their productivity as well as well-being.

Despite having a work plan for PhD research, it is hard for students, at least in the initial stages, to reconcile with the fact that their work plan for PhD is never as fool proof as the one they envisioned on paper. Experiments may fail, results aren’t always ‘perfect’, and timelines can go haywire if standardization protocols get prolonged. Even after acknowledging these issues, there is the constant pressure of meeting mentor expectations, which can hamper the students’ lifestyle and overall PhD work-life balance. It may lead to long work hours, including night shifts and working over weekends.

For students  living away from their home country , maintaining a PhD work-life balance comes with an added challenge of acclimatizing to new cultures. At times, these challenges even adversely affect their mental health giving rise to anxiety issues, burnout, or even imposter syndrome, all of which can hamper their work plan for PhD research and, in turn, their productivity. Although mental health issues are undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges faced by PhD students during their doctoral journey, the impact of poor mental health is unfortunately a largely overlooked topic in academia. 1

While the need of striking a PhD work-life balance is understood by most students, implementing it can be tough, largely due to the limited availability of resources that can guide students toward creating and maintaining an effective work plan for PhD research.

The work plan for PhD varies for each student as it’s tailored to their needs. So, creating a standard schedule sample to manage PhD workload is not advisable. However, here are some tips and advice for PhD students to make this process of creating an optimal PhD student lifestyle for themselves easier and more enjoyable. 2,3

Table of Contents

1. Manage time effectively

To understand how to achieve a PhD work-life balance, students need to consciously identify the time and energy leakages occurring throughout the day . This will help them in identifying the patterns in which they are spending time. Tasks requiring similar mental capabilities can be grouped together during the day, thereby minimizing decision fatigue. Similarly, initiating collaborations and rejecting additional responsibilities can save a considerable amount of time leading to an improved execution of the PhD work plan.

2. Establish a routine

The doctoral journey is a bumpy ride with unpredictable twists and turns. This is the main cause of anxiety in many students since, as human beings, we are wired to function optimally within a regulated and controlled system. While factors such as the PhD workload and work hours cannot be optimized beyond a certain point, the time outside the lab can be managed with more ease. By dedicating sufficient time toward household chores and unwinding activities, and creating a PhD work-life balance, students can develop a sense of security through a sustainable and predictable daily routine. Having a work plan for PhD is good but having a leisure plan is better to help you maintain a healthy PhD student lifestyle that can, in turn, boost productivity at work.

3. Invest in mental and physical well-being

To get the right work plan for PhD, research, identify, acknowledge, and then tackle the stressors that hamper physical and mental well-being. Engaging in physical exercises, thought-journaling, and (if needed) seeking advice from a therapist, preferably someone experienced in advising PhD students, can be some ways to achieve a lifestyle based on PhD work-life balance.

4. Indulge in a hobby

The  anxiety of managing the PhD workload can be balanced by pursuing a hobby where the mind is free to explore without any limitations. This can, in turn, lead to enhanced creativity and innovation in ideas at work and help achieve a sustainable PhD work-life balance. An improved PhD student lifestyle can help one flourish.

5. Connect regularly with friends and family

It is impossible for friends and family members to empathize completely with the problems faced during the doctoral journey, especially if they do not share the same love for research. But it is essential to connect with them regularly, as they can provide an objective and impartial lens to work-related problems. This can help in resolving the problems altogether or make the problems seem totally insignificant. Either way, it can help tackle the anxiety associated with failures in executing the work plan for PhD research.

By now it may be clear that in the journey of attaining the right PhD work-life balance, students should make a series of conscious choices and lifestyle changes that need to be made every single day. Exercising these choices is not an easy task, but can be extremely rewarding in terms of reducing anxiety and burnout-related issues, as well as to improve productivity and well-being in the long run.

• Mental health of graduate students sorely overlooked. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01751-z.
• Bartlett, M. J., Arslan, F. N., Bankston, A. & Sarabipour, S. Ten simple rules to improve academic work–life balance.  PLOS Comput. Biol.   17 , e1009124 (2021).
• Self-care for the scientist.  https://www.apa.org  https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2015/09/matters.

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6 Work-Life Balance Tips for PhD Students

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6 Work-life Balance Tips for PhD Students

“failure may make you miserable but i’m not sure success will make you happy” – chris williamson (host of the modern wisdom podcast).

I think balance in anything is always good however when it comes to obtaining work-life balance achieving it is going to depend on your individual needs and circumstances.

On the surface, the term is self-explanatory and sounds great. Especially when it can reduce symptoms of fatigue, help lower stress levels and increase our work and life satisfaction.

Who wouldn’t want to achieve a good, healthy, and sustainable harmony between their career and the rest of their life?

Exactly! …Supervisors!

JK of course😉

But in all seriousness, while we all know what work-life balance is it can be quite difficult to achieve so with that said here are 6 tips that will hopefully help you in achieving said balance and making sure to prioritize all the things you deem important!

Ultimately this list will probably contain some things you don’t care about at all or things that are of vital importance to you. Feel free to pick and choose which tips resonate with you and try them out. The goal after all is to get closer to a balanced state for us and everyone’s definition of that might differ.

Here are 6 tips to help you get closer to your ideal work-life balance

Tip #1. start saying no more often   .

You won’t have this option for everything but it’s important to start exercising your “no muscles” before they atrophy and you are spread too thin. Maybe this means that some experiments will take longer or you will have to pass up going to a conference here and there but in the long run prioritizing your mental health and your health is more important. 

This is one of the things I struggle with a lot myself as I’m quite a people pleaser and I often feel like I’m letting people down if I say no but sometimes you just have to. For my fellow people-pleasers out there, It helps to think of it as you want to give people your best and you can only do that if you are focused, energized, and happy. If you are unfocused, tired, and depressed then you aren’t going to be much help to the latest person asking you for something anyway so you’re better off just being direct and honest with no. In the end, it’s the best thing you can do for both you and them.

Tip #2. Schedule regular breaks        

The best of both worlds, you get to be productive and still take breaks, all while eliminating the feeling of guilt associated with procrastination! I like this one because it’s easy to do and there are ways of doing it while still being very productive. The Pomodoro technique is one such method and it involves setting a timer and focussing on work for 25 mins then taking a 5 min break and rinse and repeat. 

I use it myself for my writing sessions or for doing stuff related to the podcast and it works while taking the stress off of having to make a ton of progress when you start something. By scheduling regular breaks we get to still make progress in a way that accounts for us being human and needing breaks every once in a while. While on these breaks make sure to do something that you enjoy and that energizes you, whether that’s going for a short walk or getting a cup of coffee, or talking with a colleague, doesn’t matter just do you.

Tip #3. Take care of your health

Your health is your number one asset in life. As long as you are healthy you have options but as soon as you aren’t those options evaporate quickly. Now just to be clear here I’m not suggesting you get a gym membership and go 3-5x week or start running marathons but just to put your health at the forefront of your mind and your schedule. Whatever that looks like for you is fine, especially at the beginning when exercising or eating healthy sucks the most. Some low-cost, high-leverage things you can start doing to take better care of your health include prioritizing getting enough sleep every night, drinking more water, going out for more walks, and reducing junk food consumption. You’d be surprised at how effective doing the simple things consistently over time is compared to doing hard things rarely. Here is a quote I love that explains this well.

“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”- Charlie Munger

P.S. I am not a registered physician so my advice is not medical advice at all but if you somehow manage to fail at drinking water and getting enough sleep then you have no one but yourself to blame for that.

Tip #4. Making time for family and friends

While it might often seem like time is scarce and it probably is, you do have it in your power to block off time for the things like friends and family. An example of this could be that every Friday evening is Dungeons and Dragons night with your friends ( Yes I’m nerdy) and you won’t miss that for any work-related event whether that’s a conference or anything else. Time blocking isn’t free of course as it ties in quite well with saying no. You’re just choosing to say no to everything that conflicts with your predefined time with friends and family.

Tip #5. Setting healthy boundaries between work and life

Boundaries are important, especially in academia where work never ends and there is constantly some new paper to read, experiment to do, or project to finish. Having clearly defined boundaries helps you focus your attention better and be actively engaged with either your work or your relationships. A good example of doing this well is not responding to work emails during the weekend or after working hours. Another often used tip for setting boundaries, especially on holidays is to enable the automatic response to emails saying you are on holiday and cannot / will not respond to emails for the duration of your holiday.

Tip #6. Start practicing self-compassion/mindfulness

I’m not saying this to add one more thing to your to-do list but rather to help you clear your mind and reflect and accept the situation you’re in and the emotions you are feeling. Let’s face it, life is hard, and doing a PhD doesn’t make it any easier. Not everything is going to always go our way and we need to accept that and be ready for that both mentally and emotionally. 

Having said this, you don’t need to start journaling and meditating for 1hr a day from now of course. Instead, test some meditating for 5-10 mins a day or journaling how your day went or what you are grateful for. The way I think of these things is that our mind needs a moment to unload all the work and life-related things we have going on and just relax for a second. Sort of like running a diagnostic check on your computer and closing background apps that are slowing it down. Overall it’s good for your performance and mental health to have a moment of introspection whatever form that takes for you.

So those were the 6 tips for trying to achieve work-life balance. Important to note that these are not strict requirements but instead just suggestions made by a fellow PhD on the interwebs just trying to help and figuring things out as they go along. In the end, how you choose to approach work-life balance is going to depend primarily on your circumstances, needs, values so while there is no universal correct way of doing it there is a correct way for you.

Further reading

Thank you for reading and if you haven’t started your PhD journey yet, but are interested in some tips for that then feel free to check out our Tips for Future PhDs blog series. Part 1 focuses on whether doing a PhD is actually a good idea or not. Part 2 is full of advice on finding a PhD position that works best for you. Part 3 has advice on the actual application process and tips for that. 

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Balancing Work, School, and Personal Life among Graduate Students: a Positive Psychology Approach

• Published: 24 July 2018
• Volume 14 , pages 1265–1286, ( 2019 )

Cite this article

• Jessica M. Nicklin 1 ,
• Emily J. Meachon 1 &
• Laurel A. McNall 2  

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Graduate students are faced with an array of responsibilities in their personal and professional lives, yet little research has explored how working students maintain a sense of well-being while managing work, school, and personal-life. Drawing on conservation of resources theory and work-family enrichment theory, we explored personal, psychological resources that increase enrichment and decrease conflict, and in turn decrease perceptions of stress. In a study of 231 employed graduate students, we found that mindfulness was negatively related to stress via perceptions of conflict and enrichment, whereas self-compassion, resilience, and recovery experience were negatively related to stress, but only through conflict, not enrichment. These findings suggest that graduate students who are able to be “in the moment” may experience higher levels of well-being, in part due to greater enrichment and lower conflict.

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Nicklin, J.M., Meachon, E.J. & McNall, L.A. Balancing Work, School, and Personal Life among Graduate Students: a Positive Psychology Approach. Applied Research Quality Life 14 , 1265–1286 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-018-9650-z

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Nov. 13, 2023

Work-life balance in graduate school, by: manuel carmona pichardo. in this blog, i will discuss the importance of work-life balance in graduate school, including some common barriers and practical tips to help establish this balance..

Graduate school is a challenging yet rewarding journey that demands rigorous academic commitment, research, and personal growth. As graduate students navigate this phase of their education, balancing academic pursuits and emotional well-being is essential. A healthy work-life balance is crucial for success and maintaining physical and mental health. In this blog, I will discuss the importance of work-life balance in graduate school, including some common barriers and practical tips to help establish this balance.

Maintaining a work-life balance in graduate school is essential for preserving one's physical and mental well-being, fostering creativity, nurturing strong relationships, and setting the stage for a sustainable and successful academic and professional journey. However, maintaining such balance is easier said than done! Sadly, there can be a lack of open discussion about work-life balance in the context of graduate studies and academia. This can be attributed to several factors, such as:

• Lab/group culture: In some academic and research environments, there is a culture of overwork and extreme dedication to one's studies or work. This can create a stigma around discussing work-life balance, as some may perceive it as a sign of weakness or lack of commitment.
• Academic Pressure: Graduate students often feel immense pressure to excel academically, which can deter them from addressing issues related to work-life balance. They might be concerned that discussing these issues could be seen as a sign of inadequacy or an inability to handle the demands of their field.
• Lack of Awareness: Some students and faculty may not fully understand the importance of work-life balance or the potential consequences of neglecting it. This lack of awareness can lead to a failure to prioritize discussions around this topic.
• Advisor-Student Dynamics: In academia, the dynamic between advisors and their students can make students hesitant to discuss personal concerns, including work-life balance. Students may fear repercussions or that they are potentially jeopardizing academic or professional relationships.
• Perceived Competition: Graduate students may feel a sense of competition with their peers, and discussing work-life balance might be seen as a weakness or a lack of commitment to the field. This perceived competition can discourage open conversations about balance.
• Institutional Expectations: Some academic institutions place a heavy emphasis on research, publishing, and academic performance, which can reinforce a culture of overwork and devalue work-life balance. This can create an institutional barrier to open discussions on the topic.

There is growing recognition within academia and among students of the importance of work-life balance. Many universities and organizations are taking steps to address this issue by offering resources, workshops, and support services focused on well-being and work-life balance. Graduate student associations and advocacy groups are also crucial in promoting conversations around a sustainable work-life balance and encouraging cultural shifts within academia.

Despite acknowledging the importance of work-life balance, students may face several challenges that complicate maintaining a healthy schedule. For one, graduate school comes with intensive workloads and expectations. The academic demands, including coursework, research, and teaching responsibilities, can be overwhelming, leaving little time for personal life. This heavy workload can lead students to experience mental health issues. Burnout can also hinder productivity and harm one's overall quality of life. 

Another problem is that graduate students can have irregular and unpredictable schedules due to the timing of experiments and other activities, making it difficult to plan and maintain consistent routines outside their academic commitments. Participating in group activities can also help reduce some of the stress of graduate studies. Many graduate students also face financial constraints, which may lead them to take up additional work outside of their studies to make ends meet. This can further exacerbate the challenges of balancing work and personal life. 

Below are some tips for prioritizing a healthy work-life balance:

• Prioritize Time Management: Effective time management is the cornerstone of maintaining work-life balance. Develop a schedule that allocates dedicated time for research, coursework, and personal activities. Use calendars or digital planners to stay organized and set realistic daily goals.
• Establish clear boundaries between work and personal life: Avoid working excessively long hours or bringing work home. Setting specific boundaries allows you to disconnect from academic responsibilities when it's time for relaxation and self-care.
• Practice Self-Care: Make self-care a priority. Engage in activities that promote physical and mental well-being, such as exercise, meditation, reading for pleasure, or pursuing hobbies. Take breaks to recharge and reduce stress.
• Seek Support: Don't hesitate to seek support when needed. Reach out to friends, labmates, mentors, academic advisors, or counselors if you face academic or personal challenges. Sharing your concerns with a support network can help alleviate stress and anxiety.
• Socialize and Network: Attend departmental events, conferences, and social gatherings to connect with peers and faculty. Building a supportive community can enhance your academic and personal life.
• Learn to Say No: It's essential to recognize your limitations and not overcommit. Politely decline additional responsibilities or commitments that may interfere with your work-life balance. Prioritize your well-being.

In conclusion, work-life balance is vital to success and well-being in graduate school. Balancing academic rigor with personal life can help you avoid burnout, maintain mental health, foster creativity, and build strong relationships. Ultimately, a balanced approach will lead to success in graduate school and set the foundation for a happy and healthy future. I hope this blog has helped you in some way!

About the author: 

Manuel Carmona Pichardo is a current Ph.D. student in Chemistry. He earned his bachelor's in Chemistry from the Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Hidalgo (UAEH) in Pachuca, Hidalgo in Mexico.  Read more .

Further Reading:

Feeling Overwhelmed in Grad School? Mindfulness May Be the Answer!

A Graduate Student's Guide to Harmonizing Academia and Art

Mental Health Resources at Rice and Beyond

Work Life Balance in Graduate School

By Luke Wink-Moran

Photo by   Pixel-Shot

Deadlines, classes, and work all sometimes feel a higher priority than resting or spending time with friends and family. But according to UArizona experts, unbalanced priorities can be harmful to your health and compromise your professional success.

“Time away from work is incredibly important,” says Dr. David Sbarra, a professor in the Department of Psychology where he directs the Laboratory for Social Connectedness and Health. “People misunderstand this key point all of the time and just try to take on more and more work.”

According to Dr. Sbarra, students who take on too much work risk placing themselves in a state of chronic stress, which can lead to sleep disruptions and create “a psychological environment in our body that makes us more susceptible to disease.” Dr. Sbarra explained that sleep disruptions can also lead to an increased risk of adverse events like car accidents and chronic illness.

Graduate students should be aware of the risks of chronic stress because, according to Dr. Leslie Ralph, a psychologist who works in the University of Arizona’s CAPS department, “Research on graduate students does show that they experience a much higher level of distress than the general population. Studies on graduate and professional students also shows that quality of life and general well-being are significant protective factors in their success. In other words, having a low quality of life and general well-being can put students at risk for failing.”

So the case for finding work-life balance becomes clear: a well-balanced life benefits not only students’ mental health, but their performance in school.

When asked why some graduate students might have a hard time finding a work-life balance, and what she might like to say to them, Dr. Ralph said, “Many times, grad students have high (or even unrealistic) expectations for themselves, might feel like an “imposter,” or be afraid of disappointing others. It can sometimes feel like it isn’t safe to feel good, and it can be hard to remember that well-being involves so much more than academic success.”

For those students who want to take strides towards a healthier work-life balance, Dr. Sbarra shared this advice: “Setting and maintaining good boundaries are important to establishing work-life balance. I work best when I do not work too much. There’s irony in this statement: To work better, work smarter hours, not necessarily longer hours. For me, smarter hours means being well-rested.”

For more specific strategies that students, faculty, and staff can use to maintain a healthy work-life balance, Lourdes A. Rodríguez, Manager of Childcare and Family Resources at Life & Work Connections, offers the following suggestions:

Self-care:   Everything starts with recognizing the importance of caring for yourself. If you do not take the time and needed steps to stay physically and mentally healthy, you won’t be able to achieve your goals. 

Reasonable expectations : Thoroughly assess what you can and cannot do. Nobody is perfect; therefore, do not aim for perfection, but for “good enough.” This means you need to learn to say “no” sometimes.

            Planning: Good time management enables us to work smarter, not harder.

Adaptability: N o matter how much we plan, the unexpected can happen; therefore, it is important to accept changes and adapt as needed.

Boundaries : Establish clear guidelines for suitable behaviors and responsibilities. Often, expectations are implied or assumed. It’s helpful to be explicit about boundaries in order to benefit fully from the safeguards they allow.

Communication : This includes not only speaking, but active listening. Developing good communication skills helps us to clearly share our opinions, desires, and needs.

For more information, check out the CAPS graduate student groups and self-help resources in the following links:

Self-Care Tips for Grad Students: https://caps.arizona.edu/self-care-tips-grad-students

Pathways to Wellness Personal Wellness Plan: https://caps.arizona.edu/pathwaystowellness

CAPS groups overview: https://caps.arizona.edu/groups-overview

A List of Resources for Graduate Students with Children https://grad.arizona.edu/diversityprograms/sites/default/files/uagc_page/final_students_who_are_parents_resources.pdf

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Discover more about what it's like to be a postgraduate student at surrey., maintaining a work-life balance during your phd.

Being a PhD student can be tough at times. One of the main reasons for this is the pressure in academia to ‘publish or perish’. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I think that by pushing back on the culture of overwork in academia, we can do great research while maintaining our mental wellbeing.

Making space for rest

It’s taken me a few years to fully appreciate how important it is to set clear work boundaries. This has of course been more challenging given the impact of the pandemic and the fact we are working from home more. I find it much easier to ‘switch off’ from work when I’ve had to do my commute home.

I recently made a change to start working in a room that isn’t my bedroom and it’s made such a difference. I now have a much clearer workspace at home which helps me transition into rest time at the end of the day and at the weekends. This means that there’s only one room in the house that I associate with work now which allows me to get ‘in the zone’ and to make that work-life division a bit clearer—work happens in the home office and nowhere else at home.

Communicating boundaries

Communication with your supervisor is one of the key aspects of a successful PhD and work boundaries are something that comes into this too. You may sometimes have to work on the weekends if you have an experiment to do and equipment booked, but I always try to keep my weekends as work-free as I can.

One of the best ways to keep this time as rest time is to not look at or respond to work emails. I use a website blocking app to prevent me from being able to access my emails over the weekend as it’s hard for me to resist the urge to ‘just check it’ in my downtime. My supervisor knows that unless I’m booked in for lab time, I’m not available over the weekend. This helps me truly disconnect for those two days so I can come to my work the next week fully refreshed and ready to go.

Make time for yourself

At the end of the day, the key output of a PhD is the researcher that you become. It may seem like your publications and thesis are the most important thing but to me, it’s all about training to be a good researcher so that I can go on to have a research-focused career. So, it makes no sense to me to complete my PhD but at the expense of my mental wellbeing. I suffer from a few mental illnesses and have done since my teenage years, so I was aware going into my PhD that this was something I needed to be careful about managing. There have been a couple of blips, but on the whole, my mental health is currently better than it has been in many, many years.

Resting when I need to and not overworking is a significant factor in maintaining this. Over the years, it’s become clear that I can’t work to a high standard when I’m in a mental health ‘slump’ and that making time for myself can prevent that. I try to make sure that I use my weekends and evenings to talk to friends and family as well as indulging in my hobbies. My hobbies tend to be fairly relaxing which helps me recharge after a long day of research.

Getting the right balance

Balance is what it all comes down to. I think there is something to the saying ‘work hard, play hard’—by giving it my all during the workday and allowing space for rest outside of that, I’ve been able to cultivate a productive PhD work pattern. This will vary depending on the individual, so I’d encourage you to experiment with what work patterns work best for you. For me, it’s a 9-5ish workday but you may find that working later in the day maximises your productivity. By finding your own work methods, you can thrive as a PGR.

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Achieve work-life balance in grad school

A good work-life balance contributes to your overall mental and physical health. Since graduate students are six times more likely to experience depression or anxiety than the general population, achieving a good work-life balance should be one of your top priorities.

Working Longer ≠ Working Better

The stereotypical grad student is overworked and doesn’t have time for anything but their research. But this stereotype is based on a flawed idea. Working longer doesn’t mean you’re working better. Are you really doing your best work after 12 straight hours on the same task? Is there really any benefit to starting a new project at 8 pm rather than waiting until the next morning?

Working effectively and efficiently is key to achieving a better work-life balance. It’s also the biggest mindset change required for most grad students. To work effectively and efficiently, you need to minimize any unnecessary extra time spent on a task. An easy way to do this is to make a plan before you begin a new project so it doesn’t take longer than it has to. Before starting a project, think through all the steps, determine if you have all the resources you will need, and figure out how much time you should set aside for each step. Things may not go entirely according to your plan, but it’s better to spend a little more time learning proper technique then to waste a day because you have to order a reagent you didn’t know you would need. If you plan, you minimize your chances of working late to compensate for time lost earlier in the day.

Being selective about your work goes hand-in-hand with planning. Say you need to learn about a new topic. Is it better to spend the entire day reading every single article you can find about the subject or instead spend eight hours reading a few of the most-referenced articles and book chapters, then spending your evening doing something else? Which do you think will give you a deeper understanding of the topic? Cramming will mean you spend the whole day working and end up with only a cursory knowledge of the subject. You’ll learn more from a close reading of a few key articles, plus you’ll have some time to actually process what you’ve read.

Set Your Hours

Academia is rarely a 9 to 5 job. While this often gets construed as a justification for working nights and weekends, use it to your advantage to set your work hours at the time when you are most productive. If you are a morning person, consider starting your work a few hours earlier. If you do your best thinking in the evening, shift your day so you can relax in the morning then do the bulk of your work during your most productive time. Of course, if you work in a lab or shared office, check with your supervisor first to make sure they are okay with you working different hours.

Once you set your work hours, stick to them. When you’re done for the day, move all tasks still in progress to tomorrow’s to-do list. Having set hours means you can enjoy your nights and weekends, but also gives you the flexibility to work a bit longer if you need to. There are only so many hours in a day and if you already work for most of then, how will you find any extra time when there’s a deadline approaching? And on that note…

Getting enough sleep isn’t just a way to achieve work-life balance, it contributes to your overall health. You can’t give 100% at work if you’re overtired. Sleep also affects your long-term memory making it even more important to get your eight hours every night.

In addition to getting a full night’s sleep, work-life balance also includes taking a proper lunch break and even a dinner break if you must work late. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, if you don’t eat lunch you are going to crash later in the day. Secondly, a lunch break gives you a chance to take a break and socialize with the people you work with. Getting to know your fellow grad students helps foster a friendly work environment, which will make your job a lot more enjoyable.

Forming these good habits in grad school will help you maintain a great work-life balance as you progress in your academic career.

Source: academicpositions.be

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Current graduate students offer tips and resources for taking care of yourself in graduate school, having a life outside of your research, and doing well at the human aspects of being a scientist, too.

One size does not fit all. There will be times in graduate school where you’ll feel like you should emulate that brain on a stick. But everything that makes you a complex, complete human being also makes you a better scientist. Being human isn’t a “distraction,” it’s one of your key assets.

Here are some tips and resources for taking care of yourself in graduate school, for having a life outside of your research, and for doing well at the human aspects of being a scientist, too.

1)  Find - or create - support networks. Not only can support come in many shapes and sizes it can be found in unexpected places. Your fellow grad students are a great place to start (they actually do understand what you’re going through!). There will be plenty of times when you will need someone else to remind you which end is up. The U of M is a huge place and there’s likely to be a network that fits your needs. Look into things with the “diversity” label -- this is a great way to find people who care about supporting the community of scientists. Some of it is identity-specific, but some of it is for everyone.

Here are a few of our science-specific favorites:

Association of Multicultural Scientists specifically focuses on grad students in the biological sciences, no less. They host a series of incredible workshops (open to all, regardless of race), with topics ranging from networking skills, to starting a lab, to non-academic career options. If you only join one mailing list, this is the one!

Graduate Women in Science - Xi Chapter is an interdisciplinary society of scientists who encourage and support women to enter and achieve success in science through full participation in their scientific research and its applications; in the development and advancement of women; in the integration careers, personal goals, and society's needs; and by professional networking and mutual inspiration. They have monthly seminars and networking opportunities.

Minnesota Queer Science is primarily for GLBTQ scientists, engineers, and other STEM folks. QSci hosts brown-bag social lunches and other events throughout the school year to build community and visibility. Members have also organized panel discussions on campus, and done outreach (with demos!) to local high schools.

Student Counseling Services hosts thesis-writing groups and grad-student-specific groups, as well as the typical individual consultations.

A listing of more graduate-student community organizations and resources can be found online .

2)  Find mentors in addition to your research advisor. There are a lot of aspects to being a professional scientist, and a lot of different good ways to go about it. Get up the nerve to talk with faculty about things besides research. Job hunt? Public outreach? Being a scientist with kids? Being out as a GLBTQ scientist? Navigating big conferences? Starting up a lab? Being a mentor yourself? The list is endless ... Having multiple mentors is a great safety net.

3)  Expect to have some struggles in grad school -- you’re in good company. Some days it will seems like graduate school is designed to be rough on you, and your choice to attend school is a crazy one. You are asking questions and doing things that nobody’s ever thought possible. It won’t always be easy. It’s normal to feel that you don’t belong here sometimes, but the things that make you different also help you do science in a way that hasn’t been done before (and that’s the whole point, right?). Remember that you’re not alone; fellow graduate students and professors have had these feelings, too.

In addition to your fellow graduate students, there are some good web resources for insights on graduate school and science. Ph.D. Comics is a sanity-saver! For more in-depth discussions, check out the blogs at Scientopia -- “Prof-Like Substance” is a biology prof and a great writer, for example. There’s also a very insighful blog carnival with many different takes on “impostor syndrome,” that all-too-common feeling that you’re just not good enough to be doing science.

4)  Get out and do something different. Take a look at some of your role models and other scientists in your departments. Most of them maintain hobbies and interests outside of research that renew and recharge them and allow them to be great scientists. Athletic pursuits and the arts are common pastimes, but the sky’s the limit! Especially good are things that give you mental downtime and/or a change of scenery. For example, if your work is primarily in the lab, getting out into nature can give you a whole new perspective.

5)  Schedule Sleep!!!! How much sleep do you need to feel good? Some individuals work well with four hours while others need nine. Naturally in graduate school there will be times when you will be short on sleep because of a project or experiment. Get the sleep you need when you can. Not only will you feel refreshed and ready to do research but your body can fight off illnesses easier. You can get more work done in forty well-rested hours than sixty bleary-eyed ones.

6)  Communicate clearly, early, and often. Talk to your advisor about how you plan to make graduate school life and your personal life work together. Graduate work is not like undergraduate work. You will be expected to be more proactive and independent. This transition is difficult for some students and advisors worry about the adjustment. Ease their fears by being up front about issues like work hours and time off. Be well, do amazing work, and remember to have fun!

Written by Jo Heuschele ([email protected]).

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Finding the work-life balance of a PhD

When constant studying started taking a toll on phd student vijay victor’s physical health, he realised he needed to create a better work-life balance.

Vijay Victor

When I decided to do my PhD abroad in Hungary I had a clear idea in mind about my research plan. I started publishing papers even before getting into doctoral school, laying the foundations for my research topic. I published papers in well-indexed journals, exceeding the requirements of our doctoral school in the first four semesters of my PhD – after all, they say hard work pays off.

But sometimes too much hard work can be damaging. Somewhere in this journey, I lost myself in my research.

Being an introvert it was instinctive to me to make excuses to avoid social events, and my hectic workload helped me avoid socialising without any guilt. The graduate life abroad is confined mostly to one’s own room, despite what all the Instagrammed parties and glamorous nights out would have you think.

Occasionally I went swimming with a few close friends, which was the only active exercise I did, and I also loved going for a long walk in the countryside.

But when I had deadlines, I did nothing other than study for days. I think on average I spent 10-12 hours a day studying, reading and writing without even realising it. 

There were even times when I felt a sneaky happiness on Friday evenings as I was faced with two whole days to work on my papers without disturbances. 

I only realised that I was overworking myself when my body started to respond. My fitness tracker warned me that my average sleeping time of 5 hours 30 minutes was not good enough. 

I started getting migraines and they became more frequent. And then I started to have gut problems. This was when I knew I needed to take a break.

I went home after seeking permission from my supervisor (she was very kind and helpful) and got myself thoroughly checked by a physician. After an endoscopy and some blood tests I was told that I had developed a functional gastrointestinal disorder. Fortunately it was at the beginning stage and there was nothing much to worry about. 

Some of my friends doing PhDs shared similar stories of health problems. It was bittersweet to know I wasn’t the only one. I had already read about the anxiety and depression issues which graduate students experience, however this was a new revelation to me. To my surprise, in a random Google search at least 10 research studies appeared confirming the relationship between academic stress and gut problems.

Tips for writing a convincing thesis

Research life is entirely different to undergraduate life. My research area is in the field of economics, so I only need my laptop and a quiet space to work and so I do not get the chance to meet colleagues on a daily basis. When the deadlines are so close, stocking fridges and spending days in your room is a story which is familiar to many in grad schools. And often, when you work on more than one paper simultaneously, you have no time for a proper break.

Even after you submit you will have to deal with reviewers comments and corrections. So you have to revise your piece numerous times in order to either get it accepted – which further increases the motivation to write new papers – or it’s rejected, which is upsetting and followed by desperate attempts of trying again. Either way, you are back to square one with a new paper.

Writing research papers is often a tedious, bleak and time consuming process. Sometimes despite the best efforts, you might only have typed two or three paragraphs by the end of the day. This at times could also create a delusion that you are not putting in enough effort.

Some scholars seem to be unable to identify the fine line between a normal and an overwhelming work schedule.

Often we realise too late that it is important to strive for balance first, before aiming for perfection. As my supervisor always says, “there is no finished work in research”. Being a researcher is a lifetime contract and only by making it a part of a healthy lifestyle can one sustain and excel in it.

Read more:  What is a PhD? Advice for PhD students

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Work-life balance can be a challenge for all of us. However, achieving this balance can be especially important amidst the many mental and emotional rigors of a graduate program of study. Taking time to renew and recharge can help. Many students find that participating in events and/or getting involved in a student group encourages them to better achieve that balance. Others participate in events that focus on mindfulness and that employ a meditation component, which then helps them with stress relief. The DGS is often asked to provide guidance for students on developing work-life balance, and a student struggling with stressors is often first referred to the departmental DGS for advice and support. These stressors range from academic concerns to personal or family stress. Students experiencing high levels of stress may benefit from access to resources known to help reduce stress. Below are some recommendations to help graduate students develop a healthy work-life balance.

Social Networks Graduate students often report feelings of isolation from the rest of the University community and may require additional encouragement from their departments to expand their social and intellectual networks to those outside their academic department. Social wellness is necessary in maintaining healthy personal and professional relationships. Students can get involved in many ways. The following are ways graduate students can become involved with the Princeton community: Graduate School: The Graduate School sponsors programming to help foster a sense of community for graduate students. Our Community Associates (CAs) and staff members organize events for graduate students each month. Community Associates (CAs) are full-time graduate students who work for the Graduate School on a part-time basis to help enhance graduate student life through a variety of events and programs. Information on Graduate

School events is communicated to students through weekly email news bulletins, MyPrincetonU, the Graduate School website, and department advertising. Graduate Student Government (GSG): The Graduate Student Government is a graduate student-run organization, which represents and advocates for the interests of graduate students. Each department has a graduate student representative who is a member of the GSG assembly and represents the interests of the graduate students in the department to the GSG. Students can get involved with the GSG in some of the following ways:

• Attending social or community events, which are published on the GSG website and emailed to students through the weekly email newsletter
• Attending monthly assembly meetings
• Taking an active role in GSG leadership

Student Organizations: The Graduate School recognizes currently more than eighty graduate student organizations. Student groups are created based on shared interests. Students should be encouraged to join groups to expand their social network or create a group if they see a need. Students wishing to start their own organization can complete a student organization recognition form via MyPrincetonU. A link can be found on the Graduate School website. Graduate student organizations must renew their registration with the Graduate School at the beginning of each academic year. Graduate Student Departmental Committees: Each department is expected to have a departmental committee of graduate students, to act as a liaison between the faculty and the graduate student body of the department. The policies governing these committees and expectations of them can be found in Rights, Rules, Responsibilities. Entertainment: Enrolled students can attend campus sporting events and purchase reduced price tickets to McCarter Theatre and Richardson Auditorium on campus. Graduate students receive a Passport to the Arts for free tickets for shows on campus and can access them through their TigerCard. The Graduate School also sponsors trips to shows in NYC throughout the year for interested students.

Physical Wellness Many students also participate in opportunities for exercise and physical activity as a form of stress relief. All enrolled students have access to the University’s recreational gym facilities as part of their student benefits. They also have the option to participate in intramural sports through campus recreation.

Emotional Support All students can see Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS) for short-term counseling when they are in need of additional support. CPS also offers a variety of support groups throughout the academic year. Group counseling provides the opportunity to share concerns with other group members and work together to reach a better understanding of oneself and one’s situation or problems. A full list of groups can be found on the CPS website. Graduate students may benefit from mindfulness programs offered through CPS. Interested students participate in a monthly mindfulness and meditation series as well as a mindful stress reduction program.

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As a PhD student, I want to limit myself to 40 hrs/week. How to maintain this boundary?

So I am considering a PhD position as it appears one opened up and I was contacted about it by a professor. I'm not desperate to get a PhD. I think it's a nice goal and I am interested in the subject but its completion is not something I am dead set on.

I have read some horror stories about hours worked which I refuse to fall into. I plan on documenting my hours worked and limit it to about 9-5, mon-fri, basically view it as a very poorly paying industry job while maintaining time for personal projects/startup ideas.

So my question is if my advisor starts to get pushy and demand I spend more time working, what's the best way to respectfully maintain my boundaries?

I figure the worst that could happen is my advisor cuts my funding at which point I would terminate. Practically speaking my MS is complete so besides giving me a bad reference there's not a ton that could be done to me.

• work-life-balance

• 6 Many people draw conclusions out of your post like "I am not dedicated to research", "I will under no circumstances work longer then 8 hours", "as soon as I find something better, I will go". Can you comment on them how true or false they are? Also, which country do you want to do the phd in? –  user111388 Commented Jul 12, 2020 at 11:23
• 2 My interest in completing the PhD is dependent with how much benefit I gain from it vs doing something else which depends on opportunities available at the given time. Again I think it's a nice goal, probably worth trying but I will continue to also spend time on other things. I live in the US. –  FourierFlux Commented Jul 12, 2020 at 15:50
• 6 The best weeks of grad school were the ones where I worked 80 hours because I couldn't stop thinking about the fascinating problem I was solving. I'd wake up in the night with a new idea and start working on it then. Of course, not every week can be that way. –  David Ketcheson Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 12:34
• 7 A PhD is an exercise in personal development. If you treat it like a job you can leave at the office, you're only really cheating yourself. You're right that the pay is poor - because the dividends are paid in experience. People work hard at a PhD because you have a limited window of opportunity to make the most of your time there. If you're planning to just treat this like a job, I'd seriously consider just getting a normal job. The pay is better and you don't seem terribly interested in taking advantage of the non-financial incentives that make the PhD worthwhile. –  J... Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 12:54
• 3 I strongly disagree that wanting to keep regular hours is missing the point of a PhD. I would actually say the opposite: failing to set boundaries around work during your PhD is a great way to ruin your mental and physical health, can make you susceptible to workplace abuse, and, ironically, will probably make you less productive. I would recommend that OP look into Cal Newport's blog posts on "fixed-schedule productivity" which address this exact issue in the context of graduate school. –  Patrick B. Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 19:33

13 Answers 13

First of all, I know many PhD students (also myself) who did exactly that and finished their phd: They worked 40 hours a week (or less), had a "normal life" , knew they would go to industry afterwards and wanted to learn/do research before (and stay connected to the system "university") because they loved uni/studying. It helps that in my country, studying and also titles are traditionally seen as something valuable (so there is no feeling of "only study if this aids you in your future job" in my country). Some students also saw it as a fun experience to live abroad before returning home. For me, it was similar: I didn't want to become a researcher because for me the postdoc life seems horrible -- but one can do a phd realtively risk-free. (Now I teach at university).

It is certainly not possible to work only 40h with all profs/in all subjects. Maybe also not in all countries (in which one do you want to study?) Probably it is also not possible with the most famous universities/professors.

I do recommend you to do good research on your prof what kind of person they are. Is it possible to do this kind of work with them or not?

I do think your attitude "I am not dead set on completing" is great. If the prof makes unreasonable demands (or other things like misconduct), just go. When they suggest longer working hours, tell them you don't want to do this unless absolutely necessary, if they keep insisting, just go. Do keep your eyes open while doing the phd for skills you need in industry.

Note that there are even (incredible) people who finish a PhD and have little kids (and some of them, no partner!)

(Of course, you might have two fewer papers afterwards for a good university career, but as this doesn't seem to be your goal..)

• 32 +1, though I would strengthen "do good research on your prof" to "explicitly discuss expectations and goals with the prof before accepting the position." –  cag51 ♦ Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 17:54
• Bear in mind that this "just go" ultimatum is equally likely to be wielded against you. PIs are used to being able to hold completion (and future career / network) over their PhDs, so you will need to mean it when you say this won't work on you –  benxyzzy Commented Jul 11, 2020 at 11:38
• 4 @benxyzzy: Yes. But if the professor says "do this bad thing or I kick you out" it is better not work with them. –  user111388 Commented Jul 11, 2020 at 13:23
• 5 This is almost word for word what I intended to reply. I was in that exact situation, had great fun with my PhD, had great fun with my friends partying hard, had great fun with my girlfriend to the point of marrying her and had a great time working for a company by the end of my PhD (which lengthened it by a year or so). I left academia after that (a mixture of not wanting to work in a feudal system, attraction to industry and willingness to quit at the top of the fun and to have only great, fondling memories of that extraordinary time in my life) –  WoJ Commented Jul 11, 2020 at 14:39
• 1 +1 across the board. I'd also advise you to contact some students who have worked with your prospective mentor to get a feel for what that person's expectations are like in practice. –  Patrick B. Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 19:41

One of the nice things about working at a university is that the working hours tend to be very flexible. In my experience, this is the main reason why PhD students (and faculty) don't have a 9 to 5 workday. Some work late, but many of those start late. Some work in burst, working long hours for some weeks (before a deadline), and taking it easy in other weeks. This flexibility is realy nice, but it does make it easier for advisors to demand unreasonable working hours from PhD students. We have all heard horror stories, but none of this happened to me or anyone I know directly. Most advisors are just normal humans who don't want to exploit others. Also, the topic of the power imbalance between advisors and PhD students is very well known in universities, and in all universities I have been at there are many faculty who may not be actively searching for signs of abuse, but do keep an eye open. None of this guarantees that no abuse happens, but it does put the horror stories in perspective (that does not help if you find yourself in such a horror story)

I have known one PhD student who maintained a Monday to Friday 9-5 workweek. This requires a lot of discipline, as you cannot rely on the institution to impose those hours on you (that is the flip-side of flexibility). She could do that by being very efficient while at work. By doing so, she got more work done than most PhD students who worked long hours. People, including her advisor, knew that, and respected her for that.

However, given the way you describe your "interest" in the position (not interested in completing, very poorly paid industry job), it does not seems you have the right motivation for this job. So I would recommend you think again whether this is really what you want to do.

• 28 I don't see the OP is not interested in completing the PhD. They mention they are not dead set on completing. I think that means "I want to finish, but if my advisor demands unreasonable things like abandoing the rest of my life I would rather give up". This is a good attitude, not a bad one. Remember that on this site, there is usually the advice "walk, don't run" and not "finish the phd no matter how much your health suffers". –  user111388 Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 10:53
• 17 The complete sentence is "I think it's a nice goal and I am interested in the subject but its completion is not something I am dead set on." That does not sound very motived to me... –  Maarten Buis Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 11:34
• 29 It does exactly sound very motivated to me. OP wants to do research but not at the cost of their personal life. This is totally reasonable. (If everyone would do this, conditions for phd students would be much better) –  user111388 Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 11:36
• 19 @user111388 There's commonly a point in the middle of your PhD where you'll inevitably feel like giving up (which is an ok thing to do obviously, if need be, but may have an adverse impact on you in the short term). The thing that gets you through that is generally determination. The OP sounds half-hearted about finishing the PhD before even starting it. As a result, the chances that they'll end up giving up half-way through seem quite high. That won't be good for the OP. Few sensible PIs would accept someone with this attitude going into a PhD. –  Stuart Golodetz Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 11:53
• 18 Note also the comment "I want some side hustles though and if they get funded or we're successful I would put the PhD on hold" - i.e. "I'm only doing the PhD as a 'faute de mieux' thing while I try and make other things work, and if they do, then 'c'ya!'." That just means taking up a PhD slot that the PI could have given to somebody else who actually intended to finish the PhD. –  Stuart Golodetz Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 11:57

"basically view [the PhD] as a very poorly paying industry job while maintaining time for personal projects/startup ideas"

Only that a PhD is not an industry job. In fact it is not even a job , at least not in most cases, or the successful cases.

How does the following sound like? "I want to star in films by Quarantine Tarantino or Martin Scorsese and become a Hollywood star. But I'm afraid they will push me to work beyond 40 hours per week for each film I'm starring in! "

Like any other highly creative and competitive work (e.g., film starring), doing research is not a job (again, in the successful cases). It is a dedication that one usually is passionate about. Viewing research and being an academic as a job is flawed in my opinion. Although it is possible to reduce it merely to "a job", it is logically flawed. If it is merely a job then it is not a good one: you can work less, be under much less pressure, and earn more and faster in other jobs.

Hence, my answer is that the premise of your question is dubious, and thus there seems not to be an appropriate answer to your question in the first place.

• 9 (Not the downvoter). I see no flaw: The user is motivated enough to work for less pay because of passion. But they don't want to work crazy hours. With "a job", IMO OP means "work job-like hours", not "doing something without motivation and passion". –  user111388 Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 11:52
• 8 Research is not highly competitive work, except for those aiming for a tenured position in a research university, or something similar. As most PhD graduates end up with jobs outside the academia, we should not assume that PhD students are even trying to become academics. –  Jouni Sirén Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 18:52
• 9 "except for those aiming for a tenured position in a research university, or something similar." ---which is basically the vast majority of PhD students. So the fact that they don't end up with academic jobs just proves the extreme level of competition. –  Dilworth Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 20:10
• 9 @Dilworth: do you have a source for your claim that this is true for the "vast majority of PhD students"? Among the math/computer science PhDs in my social circle, as well as among the psychology PhD students my wife supervises (and I work with on their statistics), I would say 10-20% of the students aim at a professorship. The vast majority I know just want to stay in academia for a few more years, go into more depth in a particular subject, and then leave. (As did I.) –  Stephan Kolassa Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 20:44
• 11 There's quite a bit of research that shows working more than 40 hours a week makes your work quality worse and lowers your total work output. You haven't made a very good argument for working more than 40 hours a week on a PhD -- the gist of your argument is pretty much survivorship bias. –  Kathy Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 22:37

I do think it is possible to do a PhD and only work 40 hrs a week on a normal week, if you are head down, supper efficient and committed with in that time. I'm not sure how possible it is if you are absolutely ridged about that, never working more than 9-5 irrespective of the circumstances. There will be times when experiments take longer, or deadlines are approaching when more is needed. The better organised you and the supervisor are, the less common such time will be, but I don't think they can ever be completely eliminated. For what its worth, I think this is also true of any profession job, academic or not.

In terms of commitment, I think its healthy to feel that you could walk away if it doesn't work out. But do have to want it to work out. The way you word things makes me feel like it working out and you finishing are not even your best case scenario (which would be your side hussle to pay off). If you are taking a PhD, the supervisor (at least a good one) if investing a lot of their personal capital and work into you. A student who leaves is a black mark against a supervisor. For a young supervisor in a competitive field it can be career-ending. For a poor or abusive supervisor this is deserved. And if the PhD is making somebody unhappy, hopefully a good supervisor would be able to take it on the chin. But to go in with this being your preferred outcome is not a good sign. This is what I meant when I talked about taking a PhD "in good faith" on your previous question .

If what you want is a poorly paying industry job, get a poorly paid industry job. A PhD is not an equivalent experience.

If you want to maintain this boundary, I would say it's quite simple. You tell the professor now, before starting the PhD: "I will not work beyond 5pm or on the weekends. I do want to keep side hustles going. Do you still want to offer me the PhD position?"

If they say yes, awesome, start the job. If they ask for more time from you, remind them of the boundaries you told them about before starting. As you say, there is not a whole lot that can be done to you, if getting the PhD or the recommendation is not important to you. However, do not be surprised if under these conditions, they do not want to offer it to you: I know of multiple professors who refused to take students who wanted to keep their own company going during the PhD. Precisely for the reason you mention: if the company takes off, the student will usually want to focus on that and not their PhD. And do be honest about this: pretending the PhD is your ultimate goal to the professor, while it's not, is not ok.

That said, even if the professor says yes, I would think really hard about whether you want to do this. There is nothing wrong with protecting your time off, and I actually think that on average I did not work much more than 40 hours per week during my PhD (I did some 80-hour work weeks before conference deadlines, but there was probably also enough slacking to offset the extremely busy weeks).

But this attitude of really not wanting to work a minute more and not caring (a whole lot) whether you finish is not often found in PhD students. It is also an attitude that may limit what you get from the PhD in terms of opportunities. If you're also happy to walk away after two years with no papers and no new opportunities (and possibly some burnt bridges) - then you have nothing to lose. If you would not be happy with that outcome, then consider it some more.

• 2 "It's quite simple" -- if and only if you have good social skills to formulate this well. "I don't want to work more than 40 hours on average" might sound bad to say in an interview, even if the prof was okay with it. –  user111388 Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 18:59
• I would try to publish at least one paper, making it somewhat worth while even if I didn't complete it. –  FourierFlux Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 19:27
• 1 @FourierFlux If a professor still says yes after you say to them what you described here, here's something to think about (although it's less of an issue with PhD positions than "postdoctoral" ones): Is there a chance that this professor was just looking for more manpower for their lab? Someone to get mechanical work done? Do the programming, do the experiment, move the big project forward (their project, not yours): these are things you can do Mon-Fri 9-5 and treat as a normal job. –  Szabolcs Commented Jul 12, 2020 at 11:37
• @FourierFlux If this is what that professor expects of you, you'd also be denied any independence, the chance to set your own course, the opportunity for creative work, all of those things that are worth getting out of a PhD. If you present yourself as just wanting to be a worker, with strict separation between work and personal time, you risk being treated as a mere worker. Except you'd get much lower pay than if they hired a programmer or a technician. So what would you be gaining from the PhD? –  Szabolcs Commented Jul 12, 2020 at 11:40

basically view it as a very poorly paying industry job while maintaining time for personal projects/startup ideas.

That is a bad way to start a PHD. There are a lot of "poorly paid industry jobs" in which the misalignment between you and your supervisors expectations will be smaller.

Yes, you can do a PHD 9 to 5, yes you may even get the title, and yes, maybe your supervisor is ok with the 9 to 5 part. What they definitely will be not ok with is that getting the phd for you is a low priority.

Maybe they would be happy to hire you as a lab technician (yes, bright people are needed there too, even if they don't want to get professor). But the continued mismatch between your goals and what you signed up for can not be a persistent thing. What I could imagine what works is: you check for 6 months, maybe you opinion changes. If it doesn't, you talk to you prof an tell him you are willing to work in the lab, but that a scientific career may not be for you (that is a discussion they will have had more often in their life).

Same as with a related question , there is an issue of the field.

You might not be able to, if your field does not permit

• Are you basically doing an office job in a low-competitive field? Probably, yes.
• Are you literary working in a field? Probably, no.
• Are you working with animals or cell cultures? Probably, no. And also forget about holidays and weekends for the duration of your PhD.
• Is it easier / cheaper to get machine / instrument time during non-working hours and you really need those 1000000 cores / 100000 MWh / 1E14 MeV / 7 meter dishes for your research? Probably, no.
• Do the experiments take a lot of time and typically finish in the middle of the night? Probably, no.
• Do you need to perform observations at night, because Sun is evil? You guess it!
• It is well accepted in your field that a person cannot maintain top intellectual performance for the full 8 hours and you really need that to get your research done? Probably, yes. (However, my impression is that mathematicians use quite every single moment of time for their research, they just interweb highly demanding parts with routine.)
• Are there too many aspiring PhD candidates and too few positions? Probably, no. Because, why get someone, who works 40 hours/week, if you can get someone willing to work 80 hours/week for the same money? Sorry, this is cynical and probably against the law.
• Again, are there too many aspiring PhD candidates and too few positions? Then it would be possible to hire someone for 20 hours/week and to coerce them to work 40+ hours and also on a weekend. Again, labor laws might have a different opinion on that. But, probably, no.

What are your goals?

People here mentioned a lot about PhD studies not being a job, research passion, and so on. If some anecdotical evidence helps you, most people I know, who have remained in academia, do not work 9-to-5.

So, if your goal is to stay at the university after your PhD: probably, no.

You might ask, why are we doing all this? Why are many of us sacrificing a lot of non-working time to do work-related things? Very simple. Research, and, by extension, academia, is not a job. It's a passion, which, coincidently, gets the bills payed.

• I think the problem is more the funding than the field itself. It is completely thinkable that people in biology etc. have holidays, get properly compensated for working at night - the problem is only that their is too less money and too many people are willing to take the little money. –  user111388 Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 17:37
• Funding is a problem, too. But the thing I've head through a grapevine, almost verbatim: "If you work with cell cultures, you don't have weekends, because you need to feed your cells every day". It might be insufficient funding for technical personnel, yes. Or it might be just how some labs roll. –  Oleg Lobachev Commented Jul 14, 2020 at 22:59
• But that's not the cell cultures, but funding or a sadistic professor. In the so-called "real life", there are also jobs where 24/7 someone has to work (eg prison or public transportation), yet people alternate on weekends and get paid a bonus for working on weekends and get the time they worked off during the week. –  user111388 Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 7:19
• @user111388 No, it's the cell cultures, or the animals, or so forth. There are similar jobs in industry where you know going into it that you might need to work a weird shift or late nights here an there since someone has to be there to do the work. Ideally you work in a big enough group where you coordinate the bad shifts (academia) or you are compensated for it (industry), but sometimes it just is what it is. –  anonymous Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 21:59

I like your question. I don't think so what you propose is possible. Time limits would only be enforceable in jobs which are well defined for example cutting the grass, fielding sales calls, etc. PhD is an open-ended job, quite unlike conventional ones. It is done with a fixed goal in mind. The goal may be to publish a certain amount of papers, do sufficient research, etc. Basically do some amount of work which would satisfy your supervisor. When the works are ill-defined they are less enforceable in the amount of time they take. This problem is surely going to torpedo your working hour limits. Hence it would either cause you to leave within a month or so or you would continue to solder on having completely betrayed yourself.

Of-course all this is assuming you can get an advisor to agree with your terms of working hour limits. You should count yourself to be very lucky indeed to get hold of such an advisor in the first place.

You state clearly that you wish to have finite commitment because you want to reserve time for other projects. What you are describing is de facto part-time studies.

If you are serious about your PhD, it will require as much time as needed to complete it, with little to no time for start-ups. If you are serious about a start-up, this will also require as much time as needed, leaving no time for a PhD. [Famous quote: you do not own a start-up, the start-up owns you.]

In a PhD or in the start-up world, there will be moments when 40hrs/week will be vastly insufficient because of deadlines, i.e. exams, presentations, prototyping etc to prepare. If you are working on an experiment or doing field work, you need to do as much as possible when the apparatus works or when you are in the field: one does not stop at 5pm after spending all day correctly tuning some piece of equipment. If you have an investor meeting on a Monday morning, expect to spend the weekend working on your product, or the sales pitch, or whatever is required by your boss on Monday morning or before.

Finally, if you want your supervisor to commit time and resources towards your success, you better first show that you yourself are willing commit all the time needed.

It is an interesting question. What you did not mention is what discipline you want to do a PhD in and in what country.

For instance, in the UK, PhD costs a lot of money (about £9000 per year for at least 3 years for home students and at least twice that for internationals). So, if you are paying and have done 2 years already (and spent £18000 only on fees and about the same on living costs) you are unlikely to do out.

Saying that, most people do not pay for themselves though. There are a lot of funded positions (and you will even get reasonable bursary), but they have a catch. If you are funded by the department or university, you will have to do teaching (usually, 500 hours per year, lab sessions, marking, etc). Alternatively, your position can be funded through the project grant which your supervisor has. In that case you will have to work on the project besides your PhD topic. In any case, you will effectively have two jobs.

Also, discipline do matter. I cannot say for Humanities (probably reading enormous amount of literature), but on physics, chemistry, biology you will have at least some experimental work. Some experiments are very-very long and/or require attendance over several days (including weekends). You may have some resources they require regular maintenance, e.g. mice or mosquitoes which need to be fed and cared for 7 days a week. So, in this case keeping it to 40 hours a week is virtually impossible.

In disciplines like maths, computer science, data science etc it is a bit easier. You can choose when and where you are working, but these disciplines usually involve a lot of coding, which again usually requires about 10 times more time than planned (due to code debugging).

I have done PhD in applied math, I was definitely working much less than 40 hours a week (except about 2 months during writing thesis) and still did it in less than 3 years. Yes, I was also teaching and doing actually much more than 500 hours a year (getting very generous pay for the extra hours).

In general, I would not say that normal prof will demand you to work any specific number of hours. Academia is about flexibility. Nobody cares whether you are working 1 hour a day or 20 hours a day. All people care is the results you get.

The biggest issue here is that I am afraid, you have a bit wrong attitude towards academic work in general and PhD in particular. Even if you do not actively working on something, you usually keep thinking about something ("where is the mistake?", "How to make this work?", "How to improve this?", etc). Academia is not an industrial job, it is a way of life. And PhD is not different. And you should enjoy this way of life. At the same time I should admit that I can spend a lot of time with family and maintain healthy work-life balance.

So, if you are not sure, I would suggest going to industry for several years and then decide whether you need a PhD or not. Actually, many large companies would happily fund your PhD course if you will make a compelling case that you need it to fulfill your duties better.

• It does not change much, but fees for home students are less than half of that (£4,327 for 2019-20) –  fqq Commented Jul 12, 2020 at 8:41
• 1 "Alternatively, your position can be funded through the project grant which your supervisor has. In that case you will have to work on the project besides your PhD topic." In most cases the PhD topic is part of the bigger grant project, not a separate one. –  fqq Commented Jul 12, 2020 at 8:44
• Thank you very much for correcting regarding fees. You are right, PhD fees are a bit lower than UG and taught PG degrees. Yet, it is still a lot. –  Vitaly Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 9:46
• Regarding the project funding, PhD topic is usually related to larger project, but in most cases not exactly the in line with the project. So, whereas learning part can be combined, actual research is actually separated. That is from my experience working in several research groups with PhDs... –  Vitaly Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 9:49

Talk about this in your interview. If you aren’t having an interview, you need to make sure there is one - you need to hear the professors expectations, and share yours. If you aren’t on the same page with the professor about hours and other factors, you’ll have a challenge staying in the limits you want to set yourself, or it will lead to conflict.

A 40-hour per week doctorate is possible, if you are not expected to teach or pick up other duties besides those purely related to your research.

• But, as I said somewhere else, formulate your statemwnt well! Most supervisors I know who have no problem with someone working "only" 40h would be turned off if someone says at the interview "I only want to work 40h on avarage". First impressions are important! –  user111388 Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 17:32

The first thing would be to make sure the professor you would be working with does not expect anything else. That would mean speaking to people who know them, have worked with them, or even email some of their past PhD students to see what they are like as a supervisor. Even better if there is someone in the department you know well that you can ask about them (via unofficial channels as any bad habits are more likely to be glossed over via email ect). And when speaking to them about it, it is worth raising this as a concern and ask about it. If they try to emotionally manipulate you (e.g. 'you should do this because you love it' or something to similar effect) then you can just safely ignore the offer.

A practical point if you do start is to organise regular meetings with your supervisor (which you can also ask them about) and keep track of what you accomplished in the last week and what you aim to do in the next week and in the next month to help keep you on track. This may help you be more productive, but you are going to have to work smart during those 9-5 hours. You may also have to be flexible and expect to work longer some weeks and less other weeks, or working a non-standard work week (particularly if you have international collaborators or experiments to run).

But the most important question is why are you considering doing this PhD? You said that you would be happy not to complete. Is this a field that you are interested in and want to learn more about? Is this a field you want to work in at some point in the future or are open to an academic career? Are the skills you would pick up important for future work or would you like to do a start-up in this field? Is this a placeholder that you aren't against doing but really is just there to fill time?

If this is not important for your goal career or not something that you really want to learn more about (and are willing to dedicate a number of years of your life to) then you might want to ask yourself what other options could you take that would help you towards that goal. If you are interested in start-ups you could try to get employed at a start up to see how people run them, as well as potentially getting some connections that are important for initial funding. But also keep in mind that if you are interested in start ups in this field you have been working on then the skills you would gain in a PhD would be useful, particularly there are some similarities between a start-up's lean development, and the hypothesis design/testing of research (I'm particularly thinking in the sciences).

It is actually very difficult to maintain any boundaries while doing PhD. Up to degree that in some universities PhD students employed 50 % are expected to work somewhat 120 %, and whose who do not are quickly dismissed by professor simply saying "I think you are not the right person type for a scientist".

Researchers are, you see, mad a little bit, just like a pop culture pictures them. If you want to "balance life and work" or something the like, just do not join them.

Similarly, students are often expected to work hard and not to "balance life and work" instead. PhD is still considered an education.

I do not know, maybe somebody see this answer as disrespect to something but I would like bystanders to know how the knowledge and technology we all later enjoy is built. Regardless if you search for a new planet or a new algorithm of computing, it is always a real hell of work and uncertainty.

• 1 As someone who is about to finish his PhD soon, the fact that you consider this "normal" is the problem itself. If what you're suggesting is true then it means that Academia is toxic to a healthy lifestyle on principal. –  Aventinus Commented Jul 16, 2020 at 14:17
• 1 I do not know exactly the recent situation, but at the time I was doing PhD it was not uncommon to employ PhD students in some branches (notably biology) 50 %. This does not mean that these students were expected to work 50 % only, and I know the case when a person who assumed have been dismissed as I describe. This was happening inside a highly reputable university on the center of Europe. I know laboratories where professor called a meeting on Saturday, expecting all to be present. As a researcher, I see unethical to adjust the truth regardless if it looks toxic to somebody or not. –  algorithmic_fungus Commented Jul 16, 2020 at 14:35
• 2 I agree with h22 that this thread is giving prospective PhD candidates a false impression, which is unethical. The current publish or perish working culture is more often than not toxic to a healthy lifestyle (look up mental health surveys of PhDs, almost all of them excelled as undergraduate students), and we should not hide that, putting all responsibility on the individual with statements like "but if you are very disciplined you can do it in 9-5" or "you don't belong to us if you are not passionate enough to be in work mode 24/7". –  kapibarasama Commented Jul 16, 2020 at 21:16
• The overworking culture may not be worth it, and we need to think something about that. The overworking culture exists. –  algorithmic_fungus Commented Jul 17, 2020 at 7:10

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Is work life balance possible?

I'm entering the third year and officially beginning my research. If I work 9 to 5 or even 9 to 6, is that enough? Can I succeed in my PhD? Or am I required to have zero hobbies and free time and dedicate myself to this completely? Has anyone succeeded in their PhD while having work life balance? For context, I am in a public policy program.

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Work-life Balance Advice I Learned From Being a PhD Student

The main difference between doing a master’s and a PhD is that PhD students have more responsibility for their progress because the degree is based on independent work rather than structured around courses. As a PhD student, I only have to complete 40 study credits worth of courses: my primary task is to conduct research and to write a dissertation. But if I want the best conditions for a postdoc, I should also network and engage in scientific communication, get some teaching and conference experience, and have my research published. Honestly, it is a pretty big undertaking, whether the PhD is full-time or part-time. Here are some tips I have learned along the way – as told by others or as learned from my own mistakes. Whether you are an undergraduate, a graduate or someone considering doing a doctoral degree, I hope you will find these useful.

Set manageable short-term goals

“There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.” Every daunting humongous task can be broken down into pieces: work your way through the project bit by bit and eventually you will be done. This is the way to approach a master’s thesis, a PhD thesis, or any personal project. By setting a schedule with small concrete tasks, it is easy to tick off completed steps. Ticking off completed tasks from a visual to-do list is a good reminder that you are, in fact, progressing towards your goal. It also makes sense to make a schedule if you assume something will take longer than you think. This allows for unforeseen complications. So, if you think reading that one paper takes one hour, you can reserve 90 minutes for actually getting it done.

Avoid multitasking

Ever sat down to write a paper only to get distracted by emails, social media, another assignment, or the emptiness of your coffee mug? A multitasking brain is a distracted brain. Try to make research time free of distractions by having everything ready and by aiming to work uninterrupted for at least 30 or 60 minutes before giving in to other temptations. To this end, you can try the Pomodoro technique : 25 minutes of work, 5 minutes of break, repeat. PhD students who work part-time or who have family responsibilities have found it helpful aiming to devote an hour only to writing each day. No emails, meetings or social media is allowed during this hour. With a routine of active writing regularly, it becomes easier to get in the groove and the text will soon start taking shape.

Stick to your work time

Research is not necessarily a 9-to-5 job. In academia, overwork has become normalized and weekend work is a means to “get ahead” in a competitive environment. A 2014 survey by Inside Higher Ed found that faculty members work an average of 61 hours per week . Academics know the “publish or perish” mantra, which essentially means that unless you are constantly researching and publishing, your career will be at risk. A few years ago, Alexander Stubb, then Finland’s Minister of Finance to-be, quipped that “Professors had three reasons for working as professors: June, July, and August.” Anyone who knew an actual academic could instantly point out that academics are lucky if they get one summer month off.

Unfortunately, overwork does not necessarily equate to higher productivity or quality: becoming a sleep-deprived unhappy mess means you’re unable to do the critical thinking and poised argumentation needed for the job. There has been an increased discussion of minimizing overwork in academia , and to that end I would encourage you to stick to a 9-5 (or 8-4, or 12-8, whichever you prefer). And take the weekends off. Personally, I’ll work the Saturday if it means I can meet an important deadline, but I try to not feel guilty by taking it slower on Monday.

Pace yourself

If, like me, you have taken pride in being a good student who completes any homework as soon as possible, you might have to reconsider this habit. Of course, you should not procrastinate, but finishing your homework does not necessarily mean you get to go out and play – because there is no set homework, there is always another paper you could be reading or another analysis to do. If you are running a marathon, you have to give it your all at a slow and steady pace that will get you all the way to the end instead of leaving you gasping for air before you are even halfway. This pace is subjective, so you should decide on it yourself. It is important to just acknowledge that it is impossible to read absolutely everything.

Balance work with free time

After a productive day, it is time to relax. In fact, some of the best ideas for research come not in the middle of research but randomly when you are doing something completely different during your free time – reading a book, talking to friends, strolling outdoors. Anyone working a desk job benefits from something a bit more physical: even if going to the gym is not your thing, then a brisk walk or a yoga at home can help to stretch your joints, relax your strained eye-muscles, and improve your mood. It is also worth to engage in some productive or creative outlet that is very different from your usual work: for example, if you want to feel “productive” during your free time, drawing could be a way to have a concrete sense of accomplishment unrelated to your research.

Finally, you should not forget socializing. Spending time with family and friends is essential. Interacting with other students is good peer support, since they may have a better understanding of your work situation. It can also be fun to join a hobby group to meet people from outside your usual social circle.

Take care of your mental health

Mental health really relates to all the above tips. PhD students and master’s students generally have a higher risk of depression than the general public due to the heavy workload, financial instability, competition and insecurity over career prospects. These same concerns also apply to post-docs and other researchers not yet settled into a stable career. During the pandemic, stress has increased even in senior academics: almost 70% of surveyed academics feel stressed , with many considering a career change. This is due to the anxiety induced by the overall pandemic, frustration with remote learning and additional childcare responsibilities at home. Academics are part of a risk group, which is why mental health is no joke and you should be on the lookout for any red flags.

I have never been diagnosed with depression, but during this summer, I am pretty sure I had burnout . It was a culmination of hard work over a longer period and a manuscript having been rejected by a publisher. I was exhausted, I felt stupid, my research project felt stupid, and even in the middle of a two-week summer break, I wished I could put my professional life on pause just to have a breather. That is why, as an alternative to “publish or perish” I try to remember “value your mental health or perish”. When it is time to rest, you rest, and try not letting the work dwell in the back of your mind.

Know what you get into

This tip is for those who are still wondering whether they should do a PhD. While a doctoral degree does not guarantee a career in academia , doctoral research can in itself be a wonderful thing as you get to study, write and talk about a topic that really interests you. However, doing a doctoral is quite different from doing a master’s degree: it takes longer, you work all the more independently, and it does not qualify for student benefit, which usually means either working on the side or competing for grant money. In terms of workload, the doctoral experience differs depending on your field, your supervisor and whether you are part of a research project.

If you are planning to do a doctoral degree, the best way to find information is to ask a current doctoral student on how they experience the workload and the atmosphere of the unit or team they might be working in. It also helps to choose PhD supervisors who share your ideas about weekly workload or who you think would be understanding in case of challenges in your schedule management. If you are planning to do a degree elsewhere than in your alma mater, again, contacting other doctoral students – who might become your peers – may be a good plan.

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• CAREER FEATURE
• 26 November 2019

PhD students in China report misery and hope

• Chris Woolston 0 &
• Sarah O’Meara 1

Chris Woolston is a freelance writer in Billings, Montana.

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Sarah O’Meara is a freelance writer in London, UK.

Illustration by The Project Twins

PhD students in China face outsize challenges as they try to complete their degrees, according to Nature ’s fifth biennial survey of PhD students. On many measures, students in China fare worse than students in other parts of the world. One telling number: only 55% of the Chinese students who responded to the survey said that they were at least partially satisfied with their PhD experience. For the 5,630 respondents outside China, the satisfaction rate was 72% (see ‘A nation apart’).

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Nature 575 , 711-713 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03631-z

Additional reporting by Kevin Schoenmakers.

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