What does a typical weekday look like for a busy scientist?

[Nathew]

What does your typical week day look like?
When do you wake up?
When do you study?
Do you do anything else regularly?
Etc.

 

[lasymphonie]

Typical Wednesday:

Wake up at 7.30am. Study and grab breakfast until just after 10. Class until 12.30 - have an hour long lunch break (but have to get to the other side of campus). Lab class until 5pm. Run a meeting from 5-7pm. Might tutor for an hour or two after the meeting. Do homework until about 1am before sleeping.

 

[George Jones]

I think the original post is addressed to students, but, below, I give my example of how an old dad leads a boring but happy life.

Wake up at 6 am. Shower, make two sandwiches for my lunch. Wait to see if my wife, a high school physics and math substitute teacher, gets called into work.

If wife does not get called in, leave at 6:50 am, walk to coffee shop and have tea and a spot of breakfast, catch bus to work, and get to office at 7:50 am. Work on my own physics stuff for a while, and then start actual work.

If wife does get called in, then I have tea and a spot of breakfast at home, help get my seven-year-old daughter ready for school, walk my daughter to school, catch bus to work, and get to office at 8:35 am. Either work on my own stuff a little, or start work straight away, depending on how busy I think my day will be.

Arrive, by bus, at home at 5 pm, although sometimes I have a teaching schedule that makes it a little later on some days.

Have supper. and then do stuff with my daughter. Now that the weather is nice, my wife and I often go for a walk while our daughter rides her bike. Put my daughter to bed, and the do a subset of: read a novel; watch a murder-mystery movie with my wife; surf the internet for local, national, and international news and sports; work on my own physics stuff. Go to bed between 10:30 and 11 pm.

 

[Evo]

I'm not a student either. My schedule goes like this

Go to bed ~1-2AM, wake up in an hour, go back to sleep, wake up in 20 minutes, up for 2-3 hours trying to go back to sleep, or do the dogs, this continues until I finally give up sometime between 10am to 1pm.

Get out of bed for good, make a cup of coffee, do the dogs, check PF, stare out of my bedroom window, feed birds and squirrels, check PF, check online news, talk to friends on IM, check e-mail, pay bills, after 7pm, will watch tv if one of the few shows I watch is on, check PF, may read a book, go to bed ~1-2AM. Some where in there I may cook something, I only eat late afternoon or at night.

 

[HomogenousCow]

-Wake up at 8 am
-Go to school
-get home and sleep til 1 am
-Do homework
-Sleep at 4 am
-Wake up at 8 am

One day I will get my life back on track, but not today.
Because today, I'm [STRIKE]stealing a cop car[/STRIKE] doing some maths to distract me from the bleak and meaningless thing that is life.

 

[Ripley]

Mines incredibly mundane. I'm not becoming a full time student until September so currently;
Wake up at 7.30am, get showered and dressed, make the kids breakfast, make lunches and then leave the house at 8.30am.
Start work at about 9am.
Leave work at 1pm, sometimes I stop in a local cafe for lunch on the way home.
Clean the house for an hour and get dinner prepared.
Pick the children up from school at 3.30pm.
Study for an hour whilst the children complete any homework.
We eat dinner and talk about our days (mainly the children talk as I have a boring job and no social life!)
After dinner I'll wash up and listen to the children read. If we finish early we sometimes watch TV.
The children go to bed at about 7.30pm and I'll normally study from this time up until 11pm.

It can vary at times, sometimes I need a break and will watch TV or read a novel for 30mins. I also tutor and may have students round in the evenings.

 

[Monique]

My schedule: get out of bed 6:50 am, leave at 7:10 am, start work (on commute) at 7:30 am, workworkworkworkworkwork, get home at 7:15 pm, have dinner at 7:45 pm, entertain guests, go to bed at 11 pm, stay awake until 1 am, sleep until 5 am, get up at 6:50. According to sleepcycle, I only get 4 hours of quality sleep a night, not too great.

 

[Dishsoap]

My life is that of a typical student.

Wake up at 7 AM, eat breakfast/read/exercise until 8 when I leave for school. Class 9-1, then I either have research meetings or have to teach a lab section in the afternoon. Typically done with stuff about 5, then I go home and work on homework and such until 11 PM when I go to bed.Sounds like a boring life, but I love it!Also, you guys need to get more sleep. No wonder the world is going the way it is...

 

[lisab]

My life is that of a typical working zombie.

Up at 4:45am (I like a calm morning and the only way that can happen is if I wake early). On the road ~6-ish for my 1+ hour commute. Breakfast at my desk looking at emails. Work at my horrible, inconceivably boring job until ~4-ish. Another 1+ hour commute. Home chores if needed, a walk/jog in the park, or chill a bit. Dinner (lucky me, my hubby is a great cook!). Wind down, in bed at ~8:30. Such is the life of a wage slave, and yes I certainly am looking to change things.

 

[Enigman]

A juggle between hectic, idyllic and erratic.

 

[trickslapper]

I like this topic.

My schedule:

-Wake around 9am
-Get to the office around 9:30am
-Answer any emails that require immediate attention
-Continue teaching myself something new (usually the "hottest" programming language/other tech thing)
-Start working on my work projects around 12pm
-Work until 5-6pm
-Go home and play video games
-Eat
-Sleep
-Repeat

 

[jim hardy]

old retired guy

get up maybe 7:30

walk up the hill to retired neighbor's house where several of us 'old retired guys' meet for coffee. We call ourselves "Ozark Acres Cultural Society" and consist of a retired builder, two retired truckers, a retired electric company dispatcher, retired telephone installer, retired surgeon, and such others as show up less regularly... we discuss intellectual subjects like gunshows and Fox News hemlines.
We plan to release a country-western smash record entitled "I can't go to heaven, got too many Mother-in-Laws there".

Then return home, fix whatever needs fixing, check PF, do any honey-do's, tinker in workshop on any of several old boat motors or pickup trucks.. chop firewood for winter... about time to start tomatoes...


Here's an old boat (1960 Sears) i fixed up for grand-daughter..

she's 7. I raised her Mom around boats.

 

[drizzle]

That's cute jim. :)

 

[JorisL]

My schedule is simple, go to bed when I'm tired wake up when ready sleeping unless I have class then I set 3 alarms, sleep through alarm 1 and 2.
Go to class, finish class, meet supervisor for the current project/meet up with a study group.
Come home and browse the internetz for kitty pictures.

Somewhere in between I'd grab a bite and about 6 cups of coffee.

 

[Exoplanet]

Study math, study math, and then study some math some more, because I eventually want to study physics. Followed by briefly listening to music and/or messing around on the computer. I have an inordinate amount of free time due to dropping too many classes, and literally have no friends.

 

[WannabeNewton]

-wake up at time set by alarm
-advance alarm by 10 minutes and go back to sleep
-repeat multiple times
-wake up 5 minutes before class starts
-run frantically to class
-sleep in class
-finish remaining classes
-come back to dorm and sleep
-practice guitar
-sleep

 

[dlgoff]

Here's an old boat (1960 Sears) i fixed up for grand-daughter..

Love the pink tank. :thumbs:

 

[lisab]

Love the pink tank. :thumbs:

I first thought you were referring to what Jim's granddaughter was wearing .

 

[Ryan_m_b]

walk up the hill to retired neighbor's house where several of us 'old retired guys' meet for coffee. We call ourselves "Ozark Acres Cultural Society" and consist of a retired builder, two retired truckers, a retired electric company dispatcher, retired telephone installer, retired surgeon, and such others as show up less regularly... we discuss intellectual subjects like gunshows and Fox News hemlines.
We plan to release a country-western smash record entitled "I can't go to heaven, got too many Mother-in-Laws there".

Sounds like a good day! Loving the pink boat too

I don't really have a typical day. My PhD is an odd one in that it's an extra year long and my first year requires me to do a bunch of varied topics (it's intended to promote interdiciplinary study in age related health). Because of this my studies vary from week to week. Today though I:

• Got up at 830
  
• Ate breakfast, checked PF, watched funny stuff on Youtube to get me into the day
  
• Cycled to university
  
• Took part in a virtual reality study on perceptions of compassion. I had to wear a head mounted display and a motion capture suit before being projected into a virtual room with a crying child I was instructed to comfort. After I'd done that everything in the "room" doubled in size and I became a child comforted by a giant virtual replica of myself. Trippy but facinating
  
• Now I'm checking PF and doing general life admin, replying to emails, planning the next few weeks etc
  
• In a bit I'll meet for lunch with fellow healthcare engineering PhDs
  
• This afternoon I have a stack of biomechanics notes I need to go through, biology is my background so I'm fine on half of it but the mechanics side...yeah I need to study
  
• Probably around 5 I'll cycle home (dodging semi-lethal London rush hour)
  
• Wait for my flat mates to come home and share our days over a few beers
  
• Cook dinner, watch funny stuff on Youtube to wind down the day
  
• Zzzz

Regarding the latter I'm in the same boat with most people here in that we don't seem to get much sleep! I typically go to bed at midnight/1 and it takes me ages to fall asleep. I'm a fairly disturbed sleeper so I'll probably wake up around 5-10 times on a good night for ten minutes or so. I have a wrist monitor that is meant to record my sleep cycle but it's not particularly good, even so I regularly hit 20 times awake a night.

What is it with modern life and lack of sleep? I'm looking enviously at the Swiss on this one.

 

[HomogenousCow]

sleep is overrated.

 

[Enigman]

Say that after 48 hrs of caffeination.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

sleep is overrated.

I'd agree with you when I'm on a bender, not if I actually have work to do.

 

[HomogenousCow]

I once attempted to expand the EFE entirely in terms of the metric, by hand and on a very very large piece of paper. Took 40 hours (with breaks), 7 markers and 10 sheets of poster paper.

 

[reenmachine]

-Wakes up somewhere between 10 AM and 11 AM.

-Normally as soon as my eyes open I will start to re-check the stuff I learned the day before.I will also check out my usual suspects internet websites and chat on facebook.

-Then I will drink some Pepsi (this is my coffee) and eat something , but sometimes I'm too lazy so I procrastinate my first meal.

-Then I go to school from 13h40 to 17h00.

-After that I go back to my place and eat something again.Will also listen to some music and let my imagination run loose in those moments of pure fantasy and daydreaming.

-Then I go back to school from 18h15 to 21h30.

-After that I go back to my place , eat a bit again.Then I will do a combination of listening to music and daydreaming , waste time on the internet/listen to TV and study.Go to bed at about 3 AM.

If it's tuesday , then I will play some hockey before going to school to keep reasonably healthy , which is something I do not do enough nowadays compared to 5 years ago.I'm working on that see if I can improve my study habits through sports.

To be perfectly honest this is a great period in my life compared to when my day ressembled: Wake up at 7 , go to work (which there's no part of that I enjoy) at 8 , eat at 12 , go back to work at 12h30 , leave work at 5 , listen to TV as I'm completely tired and out of mental energy (that is , until about midnight where I have an unwelcomed boost of energy which I feel guilty having because I have to wake up at 7 the next morning) , rinse , repeat until the week-end where I get drunk to forget how miserable I am.