Do you often get time to yourself or are you always busy with science?!!

Question: Do you often get time to yourself or are you always busy with science?!!
- Keywords:
  busy,
  free time,
  hobbies,
  time
Asked by clogerina01 to Kate, Philippa, Cesar, Emily, Jamie on 19 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by icrymyselftosleep, chloeffion123.
- Kate Clancy answered on 15 Jun 2011:
  
  I don’t really get much time to myself, but I have kinda set it up that way on purpose.
  
  Here is my day:
  6am wake up with husband and daughter, get ready for the day
  7:30am drive daughter to daycare
  8am in office working, by myself except when I have meetings or teach
  12pm break for lunch
  12:30pm in office working, by myself except when I have meetings or teach
  5:30pm pick up daughter
  6pm make dinner
  8pm put daughter to bed
  8:30pm go to roller derby practice
  11pm get home and either go to bed or do an hour or so of work
  
  So my only “alone time” is when I am at work, in my office, with the door closed! That happens a lot in the summer when I’m not teaching, but almost never during the school year.
- Jamie Gallagher answered on 15 Jun 2011:
  
  Hi hi,
  Well I dont get to much time to myself- but I’m not always doing science. Right now it is about 10pm and I am just home. After work I was teaching a salsa class. My alone time will be spent answering some of your questions which is great fun anyway! I like that you all get me thinking about unusual things.
  
  I normally finish work at 5 or 6 and then I do whatever I want. Lots of time for fun, right now It is dinner time!
- Cesar Lopez-Monsalvo answered on 18 Jun 2011:
  
  I have time for myself most of the time. But again, at least in my case, science is part of my everyday life. If I get bored in the tube, or while traveling on a plane, or sitting on a mountain, or walking around, many times out of the blue I found myself thinking about some science.
- Philippa Demonte answered on 19 Jun 2011:
  
  @clogerina01 It generally depends on my work load and deadlines, but I definitely get more time to myself now I’m involved in science than I ever did when I was working in the music business!
- Emily Robinson answered on 19 Jun 2011:
  
  Well this one is a tricky one to answer as it depends a lot on what exactly I am doing in my PhD at any one time. For example the last 2 and 1/2 weeks I have been very very busy with an experiment that took up all my spare time (except for the few moments which I spent trying to answer some of your questions!) 🙂
  . So I went to uni everyday and at weekends for very long hours and the only ‘alone’ time was to sleep or eat. But I don’t mind doing that kind of silly amount of work for a short while as I know that it is what is needed for my experiments at the time and that I will get back to normal soon enough. So the next few months I won’t have to do extra hours at work and will be able to leave at about 6pm each day if I wanted to… although I must admit at times I will stay later as I know I work better when I get on a roll.
  It all depends on how productive I feel I have been during the day. Sometimes though my flatmate or boyfriend have to kindly remind me that I need to have a better work-life balance and I realise that I have been doing a little too much extra hours, so I then try and shake things up. But it really is up to me how I organise my time. My boss would probably tell me off if he thought I was getting stressed and doing too many hours… he believes in having ‘happy’ PhD students as they will produce better work in the end.
  
  Are you thinking about being a scientist? Do you think you would put a few extra hours into doing something that you loved or do you agree with my boss that it might be better to have time for yourself too?