During the journey of thesis writing, the thing that scholars are most hard pressed on is “time”. This is all the more true if you work while you are doing PhD as being able to do justice to two things at the same time surely puts pressure in context to timings.
Is it like, having a job while writing your thesis is a mistake? It surely becomes very difficult to balance your working hours with the time you have to devote to doing a thesis project. It becomes all the more terrifying when you have deadlines to meet from time to time at both the ends. And then if you fail to accomplish what you have set out to, it can become depressing, demotivating and perhaps to grow you in a state of vicious circle that would drain you not just physically but also mentally and emotionally.
There can be a lot of professional advice on techniques to balance work, family and thesis work while doing PhD, but here what you really need to know and keep in mind is if your working hours are too many then you need to reduce them to as minimum as possible so that you can increase the productivity of your thesis progress as that should be indeed your utmost priority.
My first and foremost recommendation is that full time PhD scholar should try not to be involved in a full job so that there is complete focus on the PhD work. This , trust me, is the fastest way to get done your thesis and always remember that your PhD research work is not anything less than a full time job that you do. There a middle path here and that is if you have to work, then try to get yourself a part time job. This can come in as a solution if there is no way that you can actually quit your job. I don’t know how many scholars are able to find such flexible and accommodating employers who could adjust work days or timings to suit your other priorities. If you have one such employer, know that you are the lucky one.
If you are able to strike such a balance, believe that your distractions will be reduced and you would be able to stay on the track of writing your thesis as you would not be occupied in thinking about other things that need your attention as much. So we could say that you must look at your research as nothing less than a full time job in itself so that you have your schedules, deadlines in place without many distractions
