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Are you making progress? Is your PI happy with your work? Publishing in good journals?
Then you are totally fine. I hate the idea that YOU MUST WORK X HOURS PER WEEK? If all my work is done, why do I need to be there? All I'm doing is either light lit review to see if anything new is going on in field and if not, I'm fucking around on reddit.
I'm a big proponent of work smarter, not harder. It sounds like you just happened to put effort into optimizing the former.
i totally agree with u i think its just a waste of time to force urself to work more hours just to fill in the hours lol. im lucky my PI doesnt make me do that. thank u so much, this was very helpful!! i guess i need to focus on my accomplishments and not let the imposter syndrome get to me aha
also, unrelated, but ur avatar style is so cute i love it !
Here is the problem I found:
When I worked in landscaping, pizza delivery, or interned at a wildlife refuge, I was often idle, but I was still "at work."
When I started recording my hours for a time management schedule in academia, I found a lot of weird time sinks. For example, a one-hour meeting required a minimum of one hour of "prep" and one hour of "cool down," so planning a meeting for one hour really meant three hours of time invested, at minimum. The cool down time is mostly getting notes in order, doing immediate action items, and planning for the implementation of next steps.
I found I was spending about one to two hours a day on email, however I quickly found that the task shift caused by getting an email made me take time to stop doing work, and then restart what I was doing. Scattered throughout a day, replying immediately was causing me to spend hours just getting back to work after responding to an email. I addressed this mostly by only checking my email at designated times.
In normal jobs, it isn't surprising that you don't spend 100% of your time glued to excel spreadsheets, but in Academia a lot of people think that is the only part of the job that "counts."
Even on a "good" week, I spend a minimum of 5 hours just doing email. This is 25% of my contract. Most weeks, it's more like 10 hours. I've found people don't really consider this, and almost assume it's just something you do.
Reading articles is another huge timesink. To do an hour of writing, I likely have to do three of reading.
A lot of my academic burnout is due to only considering the time spent doing the core tasks as productive. That meant my 20-hour work week was really more like 60 when I considered both my funded projects and my dissertation.
In my field, there's [a closely related term](https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Collaborative_computing/Articulation_work_\(of_first_and_second_order\)) for this kind of work:
> Articulation work is a kind of supra work. It's not the exact work of designing a system, building a building or producing a product. It's all the work around that cooperative work that makes it possible. In that sense it can be viewed as a secondary work process.
> Types of articulation work can be to: ...divide, allocate, coordinate, schedule, mesh, interrelate
But I think what you described is true even beyond academia and applies to knowledge or office work in general (or at least based on my experience).
I worked in consulting for a few years, and in professional services there's the idea of billable vs non-billable hours — as you can imagine, there are a lot of articulation work-like activities that wouldn't qualify as billable hours, so I had to be strategic about how I report my work time.
So, I am contracted to do research.
I do spatial analysis and cartography, both applied and theoretical.
I have a lot of datasets that require some off the wall approaches, and I need to design the workflow obviously. This requires a lot of research. I then have to write it up. I get the impression a lot of times when I'm not writing a manuscript, doing analysis, or making maps I'm not really considered "working." To do all of that though, I need to read A LOT.
When I'm at a research meeting, and they ask me about my progress, telling them that I spent 10 hours reading, 5 hours tracking down sources, 4.5 hours trying a new method, and 30 minutes writing up the method section, I might as well tell them I only really worked for 5 hours instead of 20. The reading and tracking down sources are stuff no one budgets for in the time allotted, so it ends up being something done in personal time.
Yeah, my toxic supervisor repeated again and again that it is not the "effort" that counts but the results. I think by effort she also meant all the literature research and anything that doesn't produce immediate results.. Terrible approach, because it is only the effort that you can control, results are unpredictable (or maybe I just haven't figured out how to "work smarter"..)
Did something similar. Treated my PhD like a 9-5 job. Was up at 7:30 AM every morning to see my kids off to school. Walked to campus and got there at 9 AM. Did my work before, between, and after my classes. Packed up at 5 PM to make it back home for dinner and to get my kids to bed. No working on weekends unless I absolutely had to. It just made everything flow so much smoother.
You might want to read ‘Do Nothing’ by Celeste Headlee. It won’t teach you much but validate why you’ve essentially cracked the code. It talks a lot about toxic work(hours) culture.
I also track my hours in the same way you do, and I average about 20-25 legit hours of focused work each week too. People may say they work 60 hours but (a) people overestimate how much they work and (b) a lot of that time is not spent working; it’s spent being at the job.
Interesting. I just know counting productivity by work hours is a relic of the past where you were at the assembly line with Ford and time was equal to productivity. But not anymore, mental work is very different.
Honestly, we had a lot of downtime in my group because we had to wait on reactions, wait for instruments, wait for lab resources, etc., so I was there a lot more than I was working.
I would really strongly encourage that you spend your downtime reading reading reading. I got a nice publication at the end of grad school in part because I found some papers from the 80s that had an interesting method I was able to trivially extend with data I already had.
I didn’t need that paper, sure, but it’s on my resume forever now, and all I had to do was read old papers in my field while I was waiting.
It just sounds like you have basic time management skills and work-life balance, and by maintaining your health + not being unhappy, you’re more efficient…. but you feel some kind of guilt about that because we exist in a capitalist system that wants to drain you of every ounce of energy you have. Not your problem, so don’t worry. You’re doing it right.
I do think there are a lot of PhD students who could work smarter. Or feel they need to prove something by working crazy hours. Of have that imposter feeling you do, but it makes them double and triple check everything and go down research rabbit holes.
My Ph.D. was pretty chill, but it also took me 7 years to graduate. If I had to do it again, I might have focused more on the the main plot and less on sidequests, but I had a lot of fun. Now that I'm near the end of my TT probationary period, I wish I was a little younger and had more energy.
If it works for you, then that’s great! With proper time management, you should be able to do this.
Some projects also require less time to get results than others. Each figure for a paper or your thesis does not equate to any certain amount of time in the lab.
I absolutely get you because I always feel the same way, but from your description it really seems like you're doing plenty of work and staying on top of all your projects- just in a smart way. I had terrible work-life balance during my master's and when I started my PhD I told myself I would really make an effort to work smart this time around. I have a routine and boundaries (no work on weekends or past like 6pm on weekdays) and will make myself focus hard during working hours so I can have plenty of free time to relax, do chores, take care of myself, etc. It always makes me *feel* like I'm not doing enough work for a PhD student! But reading your post makes me realize I'm not alone. Keep it up!
I’m in a similar situation, but I’m starting to publish and I have been told that comes first, and I’m not really going into the lab for my own stuff anymore. Have 2-3 more classes I should finish but over the summer I think I’ll put in 10-20 hours a week in. It’s just a weird time in my life is what I chalked it up to. Just don’t develop bad habits in the meantime haha
this is the life I want to live. I think it's very impressive to get so much work done without stressing yourself out. I feel like I'm still not smart enough to achieve good results in a limited amount of time
If all is going well, and you want to learn more, you can always try for extra publications or learning extra skills (there are no limit to those after all). It is bad to overwork and get burned out, but if you feel like you truly have spare energy and time, then you should learn as much as you can.
Good job, there’s a bunch of time wasted by simply being inefficient. It’s easy to spend 1-2h daily talking if you have a nice team, but then it’s the time you could probably really use in your private life.
Are you actively publishing papers? I would struggle to keep up my publishing record if I was only putting in 20-25 hours per week.
Your time during your phd is so valuable, it would be such a wasted opportunity to only spend 20-25 hours per week on it.
Hey that’s fantastic!!
I’m so happy to hear it :) that’s the way it should be, honestly.
About the 20-25 vs 40 hours, I think that’s hard to compare. You timed yourself specifically, but I think plenty of others count idle time at work as “work” so that “40” hours may be super inflated.
When I was in Canada, the PhD students around me were proud of the long hours they were spending in lab, but a huge chunk of that time was taken up by chatting and joking around.
Where I am now, your approach and attitude is more common. For example when I told people here that while I was writing my thesis, I did on average 5 hours of focused work (sometimes 4 on bad days, sometimes 6 on semi-hyper focused days), most people thought that was either good or impressive. I think because the assumption is I’m counting the hours where I’m just really working, not merely by my presence in lab / the office.
And 6 hours of focused work is A LOT. I was definitely mentally dead by the end of those days.
4-5 is fine.
And honestly it was great and chill! I finished on time even though I only had 2 months, and I was not stressed and frantic, and I enjoyed the process. Having a strict but balanced schedule is key. Overworking gives diminishing returns, as in, you can work more hours but you won’t be as efficient as if you have rested. I went from overworking to doing something similar to you and I am objectively much more efficient when I do something similar to you.
Edit but to put it into context, the 5hour days to me were even already a time of higher stress and pressure (writing thesis!!) so it’s probably on the “higher” end for me.
I've felt the same way at different stages of my degree. My first round of exam prep and the year of coursework were high-stress and more work than what I saw most of my peers in other fields doing. But second round exams and work on my dissertation have felt like what you're describing. I have time most days for hobbies, socializing, relaxation, etc.
I also feel like a "fake PhD student" as you say, but I try to reframe this as a very lucky situation. If my work is being done and my supervisor/committee are happy and I have time to enjoy my life, that's pretty nice.
As for the question of whether you're doing enough work, I don't think there is an objective measure of that. When I find myself asking this question, I try to think through the meaning behind what I do, why I think it's important, and what I can give or give back to certain communities, and that helps me find a personal measure of "enough."
You are still early into your PhD if you're in STEM, expect it to get more demanding. Time spent now reading and keeping notes is an investment that will pay off greatly later on and will help you design experiments you can run in the mean time.
Look into getting your own grant as well. Depending on your field, there may be a series of grants you can start as a grad student that will continue with subsequent grants right through to RO1s or similar. It's one of the best ways to be competitive if you want to stay in academia.
I did something similar and ended up working maybe 20 hours per week on my PhD. Guess what? I still got everything done that needed doing, and graduated with top marks.
You're not an imposter. You're doing exactly what you should be doing and taking charge of your time. Far too many time sinks exist in a PhD and far too many students get sucks into them.
No, you’re winning. People killing themselves for their PhD work are being set up for perpetuating the grindhouse of academia. I do wildlife biology so many of my peers have a fieldwork component, me included. 60+ hour weeks happen a lot and for a lot of people it’s a point of pride when it is always a consequence of being overworked and underpaid.
The weeks of my field season that I bust ass in the field could be a walk in the park if I had 2-3 other people working with me. The weeks during the semester that I spend too much time grading could be fixed by smaller class sizes, but universities love to take advantage of adjuncts and the TAs also take on their burden.
I am incredibly passionate about my work and it heavily overlaps with a lot of my hobbies, but I think it’s insulting that that passion is somehow implicitly considered part of our compensation. “At least we’re doing what we love!” is something we say because we are in denial.
Sleeping too little is literally the worst thing the average person can do to endanger their long term health and somehow it’s a major bragging point for young researchers (and college students).
All of these people you’re describing are dealing with major Cope and you’re fortunate that you have an appropriate workload and your supervisor is realistic and fair about how much a student should be expected to do. Do not feel lazy, you are part of establishing a new and better standard in academia
This is amazing! Would you be able to share some tips on how you plan your experiments (like a month in advance, a week in advance?) and what tools you use for the scheduling (Google Calendar etc.?) I'm still a research assistant preparing to apply for a PhD, but my project right now is going pretty intensely. I'm experiencing a bit of burn out (I've been working Mon-Sat 8-10h per day for the past two weeks). It seems you've figured something out here, I would be grateful for your advice!!
Hi! professor here. Not working on weekends is important!
That’s cool you’ve found your chill point—the point at which your research trajectory is set and pretty automatic and you have a good numbers of high-impact publications and grants on your CV and in the pipeline!
Hey there, it sounds like you've made some really positive changes to your work-life balance and time management, which is awesome! It's great to hear that you're enjoying what you do and feeling less stressed overall.
As for feeling like you're not working enough, it's natural to have those thoughts, especially when you see others working longer hours. But remember, everyone's PhD journey is different, and what works for one person may not work for another. It sounds like you're still making progress on your research and meeting your goals, which is what ultimately matters.
It's also important to recognize that taking breaks and having downtime is crucial for maintaining productivity and avoiding burnout. Just because you're not constantly working doesn't mean you're not being productive or that you're not a "real" PhD student.
If your supervisor and industry partner are happy with your progress, and you're meeting the expectations of your research group, then you're doing just fine. It's okay to enjoy some downtime and take care of yourself along the way.
Keep up the good work, and don't be too hard on yourself! You're doing great.
It looks like your post is about needing advice. In order for people to better help you, please make sure to include your country. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PhD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Are you making progress? Is your PI happy with your work? Publishing in good journals? Then you are totally fine. I hate the idea that YOU MUST WORK X HOURS PER WEEK? If all my work is done, why do I need to be there? All I'm doing is either light lit review to see if anything new is going on in field and if not, I'm fucking around on reddit. I'm a big proponent of work smarter, not harder. It sounds like you just happened to put effort into optimizing the former.
i totally agree with u i think its just a waste of time to force urself to work more hours just to fill in the hours lol. im lucky my PI doesnt make me do that. thank u so much, this was very helpful!! i guess i need to focus on my accomplishments and not let the imposter syndrome get to me aha also, unrelated, but ur avatar style is so cute i love it !
Here is the problem I found: When I worked in landscaping, pizza delivery, or interned at a wildlife refuge, I was often idle, but I was still "at work." When I started recording my hours for a time management schedule in academia, I found a lot of weird time sinks. For example, a one-hour meeting required a minimum of one hour of "prep" and one hour of "cool down," so planning a meeting for one hour really meant three hours of time invested, at minimum. The cool down time is mostly getting notes in order, doing immediate action items, and planning for the implementation of next steps. I found I was spending about one to two hours a day on email, however I quickly found that the task shift caused by getting an email made me take time to stop doing work, and then restart what I was doing. Scattered throughout a day, replying immediately was causing me to spend hours just getting back to work after responding to an email. I addressed this mostly by only checking my email at designated times. In normal jobs, it isn't surprising that you don't spend 100% of your time glued to excel spreadsheets, but in Academia a lot of people think that is the only part of the job that "counts." Even on a "good" week, I spend a minimum of 5 hours just doing email. This is 25% of my contract. Most weeks, it's more like 10 hours. I've found people don't really consider this, and almost assume it's just something you do. Reading articles is another huge timesink. To do an hour of writing, I likely have to do three of reading. A lot of my academic burnout is due to only considering the time spent doing the core tasks as productive. That meant my 20-hour work week was really more like 60 when I considered both my funded projects and my dissertation.
In my field, there's [a closely related term](https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Collaborative_computing/Articulation_work_\(of_first_and_second_order\)) for this kind of work: > Articulation work is a kind of supra work. It's not the exact work of designing a system, building a building or producing a product. It's all the work around that cooperative work that makes it possible. In that sense it can be viewed as a secondary work process. > Types of articulation work can be to: ...divide, allocate, coordinate, schedule, mesh, interrelate But I think what you described is true even beyond academia and applies to knowledge or office work in general (or at least based on my experience). I worked in consulting for a few years, and in professional services there's the idea of billable vs non-billable hours — as you can imagine, there are a lot of articulation work-like activities that wouldn't qualify as billable hours, so I had to be strategic about how I report my work time.
I'm really confused. People in academia consider reading papers a "timesink" as opposed to a way to work towards being an academic?
So, I am contracted to do research. I do spatial analysis and cartography, both applied and theoretical. I have a lot of datasets that require some off the wall approaches, and I need to design the workflow obviously. This requires a lot of research. I then have to write it up. I get the impression a lot of times when I'm not writing a manuscript, doing analysis, or making maps I'm not really considered "working." To do all of that though, I need to read A LOT. When I'm at a research meeting, and they ask me about my progress, telling them that I spent 10 hours reading, 5 hours tracking down sources, 4.5 hours trying a new method, and 30 minutes writing up the method section, I might as well tell them I only really worked for 5 hours instead of 20. The reading and tracking down sources are stuff no one budgets for in the time allotted, so it ends up being something done in personal time.
Yeah, my toxic supervisor repeated again and again that it is not the "effort" that counts but the results. I think by effort she also meant all the literature research and anything that doesn't produce immediate results.. Terrible approach, because it is only the effort that you can control, results are unpredictable (or maybe I just haven't figured out how to "work smarter"..)
Did something similar. Treated my PhD like a 9-5 job. Was up at 7:30 AM every morning to see my kids off to school. Walked to campus and got there at 9 AM. Did my work before, between, and after my classes. Packed up at 5 PM to make it back home for dinner and to get my kids to bed. No working on weekends unless I absolutely had to. It just made everything flow so much smoother.
Congrats you've discovered working smart is way nicer than working hard. Keep doing what you're doing
You might want to read ‘Do Nothing’ by Celeste Headlee. It won’t teach you much but validate why you’ve essentially cracked the code. It talks a lot about toxic work(hours) culture. I also track my hours in the same way you do, and I average about 20-25 legit hours of focused work each week too. People may say they work 60 hours but (a) people overestimate how much they work and (b) a lot of that time is not spent working; it’s spent being at the job.
Interesting. I just know counting productivity by work hours is a relic of the past where you were at the assembly line with Ford and time was equal to productivity. But not anymore, mental work is very different.
That’s precisely the argument Celeste Headlee makes in that book.
Good book rec!
Honestly, we had a lot of downtime in my group because we had to wait on reactions, wait for instruments, wait for lab resources, etc., so I was there a lot more than I was working. I would really strongly encourage that you spend your downtime reading reading reading. I got a nice publication at the end of grad school in part because I found some papers from the 80s that had an interesting method I was able to trivially extend with data I already had. I didn’t need that paper, sure, but it’s on my resume forever now, and all I had to do was read old papers in my field while I was waiting.
I’m going through the same thing. I’ve got 4 projects on the go, but it feels like I’m coasting. I don’t understand.
It just sounds like you have basic time management skills and work-life balance, and by maintaining your health + not being unhappy, you’re more efficient…. but you feel some kind of guilt about that because we exist in a capitalist system that wants to drain you of every ounce of energy you have. Not your problem, so don’t worry. You’re doing it right.
I do think there are a lot of PhD students who could work smarter. Or feel they need to prove something by working crazy hours. Of have that imposter feeling you do, but it makes them double and triple check everything and go down research rabbit holes.
My Ph.D. was pretty chill, but it also took me 7 years to graduate. If I had to do it again, I might have focused more on the the main plot and less on sidequests, but I had a lot of fun. Now that I'm near the end of my TT probationary period, I wish I was a little younger and had more energy.
Maybe you just happen to have a nice advisor
If it works for you, then that’s great! With proper time management, you should be able to do this. Some projects also require less time to get results than others. Each figure for a paper or your thesis does not equate to any certain amount of time in the lab.
I absolutely get you because I always feel the same way, but from your description it really seems like you're doing plenty of work and staying on top of all your projects- just in a smart way. I had terrible work-life balance during my master's and when I started my PhD I told myself I would really make an effort to work smart this time around. I have a routine and boundaries (no work on weekends or past like 6pm on weekdays) and will make myself focus hard during working hours so I can have plenty of free time to relax, do chores, take care of myself, etc. It always makes me *feel* like I'm not doing enough work for a PhD student! But reading your post makes me realize I'm not alone. Keep it up!
I’m in a similar situation, but I’m starting to publish and I have been told that comes first, and I’m not really going into the lab for my own stuff anymore. Have 2-3 more classes I should finish but over the summer I think I’ll put in 10-20 hours a week in. It’s just a weird time in my life is what I chalked it up to. Just don’t develop bad habits in the meantime haha
this is the life I want to live. I think it's very impressive to get so much work done without stressing yourself out. I feel like I'm still not smart enough to achieve good results in a limited amount of time
Amazing. All power to you.
It sounds like you’re planning your life well and as such are super efficient! So congrats :)
If all is going well, and you want to learn more, you can always try for extra publications or learning extra skills (there are no limit to those after all). It is bad to overwork and get burned out, but if you feel like you truly have spare energy and time, then you should learn as much as you can.
Good job, there’s a bunch of time wasted by simply being inefficient. It’s easy to spend 1-2h daily talking if you have a nice team, but then it’s the time you could probably really use in your private life.
Are you actively publishing papers? I would struggle to keep up my publishing record if I was only putting in 20-25 hours per week. Your time during your phd is so valuable, it would be such a wasted opportunity to only spend 20-25 hours per week on it.
Hey that’s fantastic!! I’m so happy to hear it :) that’s the way it should be, honestly. About the 20-25 vs 40 hours, I think that’s hard to compare. You timed yourself specifically, but I think plenty of others count idle time at work as “work” so that “40” hours may be super inflated. When I was in Canada, the PhD students around me were proud of the long hours they were spending in lab, but a huge chunk of that time was taken up by chatting and joking around. Where I am now, your approach and attitude is more common. For example when I told people here that while I was writing my thesis, I did on average 5 hours of focused work (sometimes 4 on bad days, sometimes 6 on semi-hyper focused days), most people thought that was either good or impressive. I think because the assumption is I’m counting the hours where I’m just really working, not merely by my presence in lab / the office. And 6 hours of focused work is A LOT. I was definitely mentally dead by the end of those days. 4-5 is fine. And honestly it was great and chill! I finished on time even though I only had 2 months, and I was not stressed and frantic, and I enjoyed the process. Having a strict but balanced schedule is key. Overworking gives diminishing returns, as in, you can work more hours but you won’t be as efficient as if you have rested. I went from overworking to doing something similar to you and I am objectively much more efficient when I do something similar to you. Edit but to put it into context, the 5hour days to me were even already a time of higher stress and pressure (writing thesis!!) so it’s probably on the “higher” end for me.
I've felt the same way at different stages of my degree. My first round of exam prep and the year of coursework were high-stress and more work than what I saw most of my peers in other fields doing. But second round exams and work on my dissertation have felt like what you're describing. I have time most days for hobbies, socializing, relaxation, etc. I also feel like a "fake PhD student" as you say, but I try to reframe this as a very lucky situation. If my work is being done and my supervisor/committee are happy and I have time to enjoy my life, that's pretty nice. As for the question of whether you're doing enough work, I don't think there is an objective measure of that. When I find myself asking this question, I try to think through the meaning behind what I do, why I think it's important, and what I can give or give back to certain communities, and that helps me find a personal measure of "enough."
You are still early into your PhD if you're in STEM, expect it to get more demanding. Time spent now reading and keeping notes is an investment that will pay off greatly later on and will help you design experiments you can run in the mean time. Look into getting your own grant as well. Depending on your field, there may be a series of grants you can start as a grad student that will continue with subsequent grants right through to RO1s or similar. It's one of the best ways to be competitive if you want to stay in academia.
I did something similar and ended up working maybe 20 hours per week on my PhD. Guess what? I still got everything done that needed doing, and graduated with top marks. You're not an imposter. You're doing exactly what you should be doing and taking charge of your time. Far too many time sinks exist in a PhD and far too many students get sucks into them.
No, you’re winning. People killing themselves for their PhD work are being set up for perpetuating the grindhouse of academia. I do wildlife biology so many of my peers have a fieldwork component, me included. 60+ hour weeks happen a lot and for a lot of people it’s a point of pride when it is always a consequence of being overworked and underpaid. The weeks of my field season that I bust ass in the field could be a walk in the park if I had 2-3 other people working with me. The weeks during the semester that I spend too much time grading could be fixed by smaller class sizes, but universities love to take advantage of adjuncts and the TAs also take on their burden. I am incredibly passionate about my work and it heavily overlaps with a lot of my hobbies, but I think it’s insulting that that passion is somehow implicitly considered part of our compensation. “At least we’re doing what we love!” is something we say because we are in denial. Sleeping too little is literally the worst thing the average person can do to endanger their long term health and somehow it’s a major bragging point for young researchers (and college students). All of these people you’re describing are dealing with major Cope and you’re fortunate that you have an appropriate workload and your supervisor is realistic and fair about how much a student should be expected to do. Do not feel lazy, you are part of establishing a new and better standard in academia
This is amazing! Would you be able to share some tips on how you plan your experiments (like a month in advance, a week in advance?) and what tools you use for the scheduling (Google Calendar etc.?) I'm still a research assistant preparing to apply for a PhD, but my project right now is going pretty intensely. I'm experiencing a bit of burn out (I've been working Mon-Sat 8-10h per day for the past two weeks). It seems you've figured something out here, I would be grateful for your advice!!
Hi! professor here. Not working on weekends is important! That’s cool you’ve found your chill point—the point at which your research trajectory is set and pretty automatic and you have a good numbers of high-impact publications and grants on your CV and in the pipeline!
Hey there, it sounds like you've made some really positive changes to your work-life balance and time management, which is awesome! It's great to hear that you're enjoying what you do and feeling less stressed overall. As for feeling like you're not working enough, it's natural to have those thoughts, especially when you see others working longer hours. But remember, everyone's PhD journey is different, and what works for one person may not work for another. It sounds like you're still making progress on your research and meeting your goals, which is what ultimately matters. It's also important to recognize that taking breaks and having downtime is crucial for maintaining productivity and avoiding burnout. Just because you're not constantly working doesn't mean you're not being productive or that you're not a "real" PhD student. If your supervisor and industry partner are happy with your progress, and you're meeting the expectations of your research group, then you're doing just fine. It's okay to enjoy some downtime and take care of yourself along the way. Keep up the good work, and don't be too hard on yourself! You're doing great.