• Question: How much spare time do you have outside of your job?

    Asked by anon-188237 to Warren, Shanti, Pizza Ka Yee, Paul, Nadine, Alex on 5 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Warren Mansell

      Warren Mansell answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      I only work three days a week, but my spare time is pretty busy having two young sons!

    • Photo: Nadine Mirza

      Nadine Mirza answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      Honestly, it changes from week to week. Sometimes it feels like I have a million deadlines going on so even when I’m home from the office I’ll be working consistently, with only the slightest break for food and that work can seep into weekends. Other times I can afford to take a day or two off in the week, where I’ll only write a little bit and answer some emails. I am trying to be better and have a more fixed schedule of working in the morning and afternoon hours and giving myself a fun evening. But as any scientist might tell you, sometimes it feels like the research is running you.

    • Photo: Alex Reid

      Alex Reid answered on 10 Nov 2018:

      Hi Zedoyxz, thanks for the question. Academics tend to work very hard, and a lot of people I know work so hard they tend to have not much free time at all! I try and keep a healthy work/life balance by keeping my weekends free to do things I like that are unrelated to my work. Today for example, I ate three Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and am going to hang out with my friends later. I find doing things I like in my spare time makes me more happy and productive in the long run.

    • Photo: Paul Matusz

      Paul Matusz answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      It indeed depends. When there are some important deadilnes, I will sacrifice a weekend, or 2. But I am quite strict about not working over weekends. I do go to the gym quite often, read books all the time and I have an obsession with watching TV series. I currently don’t have a family, so I can allow myself to be much more flexible, so I work 8-9h a day, but then also as I travel a lot for work, I attach some extra days to explore the new city – so it’s hard to say how much time I actually do work. It’s more than your usual 40h per week, but then a lot of what I do is extremely interesting or personally fulfilling so it’s also hard to call it a job. I’m also learning French intensively for the past year – 2x per week 1h. Which is cool, as it helps me to get familiar with other latin languages like Spanish, Italian or Portuguese – I do need it for my work but it’s actually quite cool to learn something that is not linked to brains or learning or vision medicine 🙂

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