A day of PhD work: Pre-, mid- and post- pandemic

This may come as a shock but a research based PhD involves a lot lab time. Seriously, the vast majority of your time will be spent in a lab coat and safety specs hunched over a bench. The rest of the time you’ll be writing up, editing and all the other little tasks no one tells you about. That was the first 2.5 years of my PhD – being in the lab was my priority and I had to fit everything else around it. Then 6 months ago the whole world was forced to shut down and my building was forced to close in response to the global pandemic and that meant saying goodbye to lab work for the foreseeable future.
While I could have attempted to set up a lab at home there were two problems: 1) Some of the equipment and chemicals I use are far too dangerous to use outside of a real lab and 2) my wife would divorce and/or murder me if I tried to turn our spare room into a chemistry lab. As with the majority of PhD and post-doc researchers I had to find a new way to work; mainly by writing and building new skills that would be useful once work resumed.
Three weeks ago, after 5 months of being at home, I was finally allowed back in the building. Since then I have been happily running experiments and collecting data. But things are not like they were; to be able to work we have new health and safety protocols, social distancing measures throughout the building and work is now done in shifts to minimise the number of people on campus.
I’ve only been back a few weeks but that has been long enough to build a routine around the new protocols. So to give some insight into how things have changed, I wanted to compare what an average day looked like across three different periods of time: Pre-lockdown, mid-lockdown and now post-lockdown.*

*Disclaimer: I use the term post-lockdown here very loosely; the U.K is currently showing signs of a second wave and is beginning to reinstate some restrictions. Here post-lockdown just means “when I was allowed back in the lab.”

The good ol’ days
I’m one of those awful early birds, so before the pandemic my lab day would start at the ungodly hour of 7 am. Being in this early had two advantages; I don’t have to worry about people using equipment when I need it and I can stick the radio on and sing along when a great tune comes on (have you tried not to sing to Bohemian Rhapsody, it’s impossible). In the morning I would be in the lab for around 4 hours and during this time would weigh some items for my yearlong challenge “How much does it weigh” and perform some experiments. During this lab time I would fit in either a single long experiment or 2 shorter ones, depending on what I was working on. Then once that was wrapped up, usually around 11 am, I head home for an early lunch; I have a dog so I have to go and let her out of the house. Once I was finished giving my dog some attention I grab some lunch then head back to work no later than 1 pm. During the afternoon I would try and get back in the lab, but it’s also the time of day when people like to book meetings so my afternoon schedule was always very flexible. This was my usual routine and it was very flexible because I could come and go as I liked, meaning if I was busy and had to skip an experiment I could make up the time another day. Little did I know, how lucky I was to be able to work like that.

Lab under lockdown
Now we get to the 23rd march – the date of the U.K lockdown. The whole of the University was shutdown, labs were closed and offices covered with no entry tape – I was sent home with nothing but a laptop and 18 months left to get enough data to finish my PhD. At the start of this situation I, like everyone else, was struggling to build a new routine. I still woke up early but instead of going to the lab I would spend time doing house projects or, more importantly, playing on Animal Crossing. In between these activities I would sit down and try and write some of my thesis, if I was feeling particularly productive I could get a whole 200 words a day written.
Once it became obvious that lockdown was going to go on for longer than we had all hoped I realised that I needed to build a more sustainable working pattern. At the start of the third week I sat down and planned out a daily schedule; in particular I was going to use the pomodoro method. If you haven’t used this before it relies on working in 25 minute intervals followed by 5 minutes a break, with longer breaks every 4th/5th session. I set my routine up so I was writing either my thesis or a literature review my supervisor had asked me to write in the morning. Then I would have lunch and in the afternoon read what I had written that morning and edit out the terrible bits. To add a little variety I had meetings scattered throughout the week but for the rest of lockdown that was my routine: write, eat, edit - repeat. This routine got very repetitive after 4 months and I my schedule began to get more sporadic as we approached the 5 month mark. If it had gone on much longer I would have needed to find a new routine, thankfully it was during this time when my building finally started to open back up and let us in the labs.

Out with the old, in with the new
That brings us to three weeks ago – when I finally got the email telling me I have access to the building and can start booking equipment. But we have new rules to follow; the old way of working is gone. Before I could go into the building I had to complete online quizzes and re-write all my risk assessments to take into account social distancing. Likewise, I couldn’t come and go as I pleased, I have to book a room in advance and could only go in if I have a booking. Also my building is following the 2 metre rule; which means that corridors are one way, you have to shout upstairs to make sure nobody is coming down and we have designated entry and exits points to the building. It make to 2 metre rule possible the building also has to work at reduced capacity; 20 - 25% of what it was pre-lockdown. This means I can be in for 4 hours and not see another living soul. The other major change is masks; now we have to wear masks in all communal areas. I am calling this a change but now that masks are mandatory in pretty much all indoor spaces in the U.K they are a normal part of life.
I have tried to build my routine so it resembles what I had before coronavirus. I am lucky because my lab is still quiet so I can mostly get away with this. For now I have morning slots booked from 7:30 to 12:00, three times a week. On the other days I will try and book a couple of hours but that depends on the other people who need to use the lab. Once I’m done in the lab I then head home and spend the rest of the day analysing the results from that mornings experiments. And as usual I can’t avoid meetings so try to schedule them in the afternoon to avoid lab time; but I have been know to multitask and be in the lab and in a meeting at the same time - the beauty of virtual meetings.

Conclusion
Whether it’s how to safely spend time with friends and family or how to do our jobs, because of this pandemic we are all trying to find new routines. What was once easy is now a challenge; every day feels like an uphill battle. Returning to the lab is an on-going challenge and the situation can change every week, if not every day. As I mentioned in previous blog post we can only do so much and we have to focus on what we control. Do your best to build a routine, but accept that a lot of your plans might be out of your control. If you have any advice on finding new routines as we return to the lab let me know in the comments below or on twitter.