I was working on a PhD for a while (which I dropped out of before finishing it) - I don’t know if this makes me a good or bad authority on stuff like this!
[Having written this comment, I realise I am entirely giving you advice, and you didn’t ask for advice, but for people to talk about similar situations in their lives. I’m sorry and I hope it’s somewhat useful anyway?]
Relevant questions: can you realistically ‘exchange’ for EA hours for PhD hours? Or would you be too tired/unmotivated to use that time for PhD work anyway? They are both hard intellectual work; but in my experience, if I’m working on two different things, sometimes I can do more than if I’m working on just one thing. Also, I can do more work in areas where I’m intrinsically motivated, and if you’re doing 3-7 hours/week of voluntary EA stuff, I’m guessing you’re intrinsically motivated.
How much do you think employers will care about how long you took to do the PhD? My intuition (based on Humanities academia in the US) is ‘they won’t care at all’, but maybe in your field/region it’s different. You could even ask your supervisor about this: like ‘if I took X+1 years to finish, rather than X years, how much do you think it would hurt my chance on the job market?’
It might be helpful to write down the concrete consequences (good and bad) or doing the amount of EA stuff you’re currently doing, vs doing less/none. It sounds like the main bad consequence is a feeling that you’re not doing enough work (even though your supervisor seems happy with you). I think this is pretty common among PhD students. It might be worse gently asking where that thought is coming from. What would be so bad about being a complete slacker on your PhD?
Thanks for your thoughts and your questions to trigger reflection, I’ll have to think about it… I always took for granted that it might be a disadvantage to take longer to finish my PhD but tbh I’m not sure, I will ask my supervisor and colleagues! (PS. Advice is also much appreciated and I edited my question accordingly)
I was working on a PhD for a while (which I dropped out of before finishing it) - I don’t know if this makes me a good or bad authority on stuff like this!
[Having written this comment, I realise I am entirely giving you advice, and you didn’t ask for advice, but for people to talk about similar situations in their lives. I’m sorry and I hope it’s somewhat useful anyway?]
Relevant questions: can you realistically ‘exchange’ for EA hours for PhD hours? Or would you be too tired/unmotivated to use that time for PhD work anyway? They are both hard intellectual work; but in my experience, if I’m working on two different things, sometimes I can do more than if I’m working on just one thing. Also, I can do more work in areas where I’m intrinsically motivated, and if you’re doing 3-7 hours/week of voluntary EA stuff, I’m guessing you’re intrinsically motivated.
How much do you think employers will care about how long you took to do the PhD? My intuition (based on Humanities academia in the US) is ‘they won’t care at all’, but maybe in your field/region it’s different. You could even ask your supervisor about this: like ‘if I took X+1 years to finish, rather than X years, how much do you think it would hurt my chance on the job market?’
It might be helpful to write down the concrete consequences (good and bad) or doing the amount of EA stuff you’re currently doing, vs doing less/none. It sounds like the main bad consequence is a feeling that you’re not doing enough work (even though your supervisor seems happy with you). I think this is pretty common among PhD students. It might be worse gently asking where that thought is coming from. What would be so bad about being a complete slacker on your PhD?
Thanks for your thoughts and your questions to trigger reflection, I’ll have to think about it… I always took for granted that it might be a disadvantage to take longer to finish my PhD but tbh I’m not sure, I will ask my supervisor and colleagues! (PS. Advice is also much appreciated and I edited my question accordingly)