PhD Discussion Forum

Greetings fellow nocturnal workers, i thought a thread to celebrate all things nocturnalness was appropriate. Today I finally realised that after trying for the best part of the last year to work 9-5 hours, I just can't produce the quantity and quality of work that I'm able to produce in the small hours. So I'm changing my working hours to suit my most productive periods.

I don't know what everyone else thinks, but there's too much visual and audible noise in the daytime which stops me from getting into the "zone". I guess it's horses for courses depending on whether you're and owl or a lark, but what time of day does everyone else produce their best stuff?

Unbelievable. Sylvester, you truly sound like my soulmate. It's 2.13am, I just ordered a double cheese pizza delivery, drank a bottle of coffee to stay awake and hope to pull now a nice all nighter to make up for this weeks procrastination. Funnily, I always thought that it's only the PhD which makes me do this, but even now I still find myself unproductive during the day and highly productive during the night.

"All night long, I'm working, all night long...all night long"

It's something I've kind of known about myself for years but I've tried to force myself into doing it during normal daylight hours. It doesn't work as I never manage to generate any momentum in the daytime, hence lots of faffing around and general procrastination. If I'm going to stand any chance at all getting this done in 3 years me thinks burning the midnight oil will be the only way. Just as well I don't suffer from seasonal affective disorder!

Same here sylvester

not just you

I've always been like this, undergrad to MA and now phd - I can only ever get "real" work done at night. I TRY do do 9-5 (well, 10-6, 11-7, whatever ;) ) but I find that the only work I can do during the day is communication, transcribing, data-input, filling-in forms etc. I can't do the real thinking/theorizing and writing stuff that really makes the phd until the wee small hours!!!

Yep, burning the midnight oil here, and going along nicely. I also feel guilty for not being conspicuous around the dept in the daytime. It's like I feel I have to be seen, and seen to be working. In truth, i doubt my supervisors are even bothered what hours i work so long as I'm producing the goods (which daytime working clearly isn't doing for me).

Since I reverted back to this way of working I'm feeling somewhat reassured. For awhile i was questioning whether I was capable of higher level thought, somehow remembering that I was able to do it on my dissertation but seemingly not anymore. In fact, it's still there, I merely forgot that I wrote my dissertation late at night and now I've rediscovered that way of working. My confidence is returning!

I think I'm going to be having another all-nighter...I was beginning to think that there was something wrong with me - so glad to have found this post. I don't know if anyone watches the weekly 'cutewithchris' on youtube but "morrre cwoffee" comes to mind! Anybody else up?