4 ms·

I'm a phd student in physics, I'd say about 3 or 4 hours a day

analog31 6y ago
I was that student once. I can't analyze or fault your work habits, especially since physics might be even harder to measure than coding. (Of course a lot of physics is coding). There's a difference between 3-4 hours of focused work surrounded by a regular day of work, and 3-4 hours of procrastinating. I was on the wrong side of that equation. But I was up against a number of realities: 1) My project was not in fact moving forward at a sufficient rate. Work is not static, but decays if you leave it sit there, so the progress rate has to exceed the decay rate. And it wasn't. 2) I was paying through the nose in opportunity cost. 3) I wasn't happy with myself, and in fact was kind of depressed. A stress of grad school is that you have to be self managing, and I still don't have a good formula for overcoming this problem. But I survived and eventually finished. My advisor leaving the university put a fire under my ass, because I had to finish before the lab got demolished. But this is the other thing to know: The risk level is extreme in terms of something bad happening that sets you back or kills your project altogether. One thing I found was that some kinds of work were easier to get into "flow" than others. Coding was easy. So I actually let coding occur in what I might actually call spare time. Interruptions weren't as much of a problem in grad school. The boring stuff was the hardest -- grinding on a supplier to get me a price quote and then grinding on the purchasing department to send out a purchase order. That's where my procrastination really kicked in. So, enough of the scolding. If you're doing the right thing to get through, then ignore this message. You probably know better than anybody. Best of luck!
- joeberon 6y ago
  I think my situation is quite different. I do very little coding actually too! I am quite independent and a purely theoretical physicist. I've already put out a couple of papers and would be able to continue well without my supervisor. Although I have had really bad periods of procrastination throughout my PhD, but in general I work in short sharp bursts rather than sustained periods. You mention flow, it's hard to get into the flow when you are deriving new equations or approaches to things!

I was that student once. I can't analyze or fault your work habits, especially since physics might be even harder to measure than coding. (Of course a lot of physics is coding). There's a difference between 3-4 hours of focused work surrounded by a regular day of work, and 3-4 hours of procrastinating. I was on the wrong side of that equation. But I was up against a number of realities: 1) My project was not in fact moving forward at a sufficient rate. Work is not static, but decays if you leave it sit there, so the progress rate has to exceed the decay rate. And it wasn't. 2) I was paying through the nose in opportunity cost. 3) I wasn't happy with myself, and in fact was kind of depressed. A stress of grad school is that you have to be self managing, and I still don't have a good formula for overcoming this problem. But I survived and eventually finished. My advisor leaving the university put a fire under my ass, because I had to finish before the lab got demolished. But this is the other thing to know: The risk level is extreme in terms of something bad happening that sets you back or kills your project altogether. One thing I found was that some kinds of work were easier to get into "flow" than others. Coding was easy. So I actually let coding occur in what I might actually call spare time. Interruptions weren't as much of a problem in grad school. The boring stuff was the hardest -- grinding on a supplier to get me a price quote and then grinding on the purchasing department to send out a purchase order. That's where my procrastination really kicked in. So, enough of the scolding. If you're doing the right thing to get through, then ignore this message. You probably know better than anybody. Best of luck!

joeberon 6y ago
I think my situation is quite different. I do very little coding actually too! I am quite independent and a purely theoretical physicist. I've already put out a couple of papers and would be able to continue well without my supervisor. Although I have had really bad periods of procrastination throughout my PhD, but in general I work in short sharp bursts rather than sustained periods. You mention flow, it's hard to get into the flow when you are deriving new equations or approaches to things!