In the Summertime (when the weather is hot)
(Mungo Jerry obviously never spent Summertime in Scotland).
I’m bad at taking holidays.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to not work and be lazy. I’ve mastered the art of procrastination. I love to explore and travel. I love to simply go back home to see my family and friends (and more importantly my cat, Elliot)
But since starting my PhD, I’ve just become astonishingly bad at taking holidays. Over the last 2 years I allowed myself 4 holidays, two a year, to go back home (for Christmas and during Summer, for a greatly needed Vitamin D reload). And that’s it.
That being said, I’m just back from 10 days at home so let’s take a minute to try and discuss that tricky relationship PhD students have with holidays.
Am I the only one bad at holidaying? If you’re like me, and the professional holiday-goer you once were has been crushed by the PhD, please, tell me! Let’s team up and help each other retrieve our holiday skills!
Why are so we bad at holidaying?
I can think of 3 major culprits: the money, the workload, and the guilt.
The Money
Most of us grad students tend to be on the lower side of the pay scale. But should this stop us from going on holiday? No it shouldn’t! If like me you’re doing your PhD abroad, that’s brilliant! Moving around in this new country will be as exotic for you as travelling to the other side of the world, and it will be much cheaper. I feel like I barely left Edinburgh over the last 2 years, and this is so stupid of me. Please, do send me weekly reminders to visit this gorgeous place that is Scotland. If you’re doing your PhD in your own country, why not do the same? You probably don’t know every bit of this place you call home. When your career takes you far away towards a glorious future, you’ll realise that there are tonnes of stunning places in your home country you won’t be able to visit easily anymore. So prepare yourself for future glory and success and go on cheap holidays around the country you live in now, while you can.
The Workload
A PhD project looks a lot like a massive mountain, the peak lost in the clouds, without a single shelter to be seen. Just one, ginormous task. You have so many things to do you can’t ever see the end of it. How could you possibly find time to go on holiday? Now let’s really think about it for a second.
If you take one week off, will it make a difference for your project timeline? No, it won’t. Seriously. Stop looking for excuses. In most cases (except tines like right before a submission deadline) it won’t.
If you take one week off, will it make a difference for your mental health? Yes, it will.
Going away for a few days can actually make you think more clearly and you’ll come back all powered up and ready to tackle that whole PhD mountain.
Ideally, think about a few days in your timeline when you will mostly be waiting on others to give you feedback. A paper submitted, an ethics application …. Sure you have enough on your plate to keep you busy while waiting but these could also be good and convenient times for you to take a few days off. Another good time is right after an exhausting event or task. Knowing I’d be exhausted after a big conference (see the post on Conferences), I booked my flights back home for the following week. High five, past Bérengère!
The Guilt
The guilt is the worst. The guilt of spending money on holidays when you should be saving it because you don’t have any. The guilt of not working when you have so much to do. I find shutting up the guilt can be the most challenging because the big difference between a PhD and most other jobs, is that you are very much alone to work on your project. If you don’t get the work done, nobody will do it for you.
Still, it goes without saying: don’t work over the holidays! My go-to technique: go to my parents’. This means a hamlet of 10 houses next to the mountains, surrounded by fields and forests and an average of 15 mins required to load a low-resolution, 5-min long YouTube video. You have to walk up the hill to get signal on your phone. Sure, you could still read papers or do some writing, but personally I see this lack of network as a sign from Mother Nature telling me to sit down, grab a book, pour myself a drink, and pet the cat.
Still, I really don’t know what to tell you to help shut off the guilt completely.
Do you have any advice for me?
Maybe the key is to remember that going on holiday will make you come back with a clearer mind, which will make you more efficient in your work.
Or it will make you come back tanned and with stunning Instagram pictures, which will blow up your self-esteem.
Or it will make you come back with a suitcase loaded with the most delicious food and 2k long, white cat hairs, which will support you through the hard days to come.
So just close this page, and go and book yourself some much needed holidays.
Sincerely,
-Bérengère
