Work-life balance: 40-ish hour weeks?

[psy86]

We've had some good threads on here before about salary issues and how to make decent money as a clinical psychologist. I'm wondering whether we could have a thread about how to work decent hours... Because I am not the kind of person who wants to work 70-hour weeks for the rest of my life. Most psychologists I know seem extremely overworked and exhausted. It's really disheartening, for me.

Anyone know of settings where psychologists are routinely working 40-50 hour weeks? The only example I can think of is the V.A., where it seems that most psychologists are not working crazy hours, since everyone leaves at 4:30 and you can't take work home.

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[Ollie123]

VA's for sure.

Are you talking about straight out of grad school? I mean, generally speaking once you are established you have more ability to set your schedule. Once you are tenured for example. Same goes for private practice - alot of work at first but you can taper down to something more reasonable once you're well established. Or for that matter you could go into industry, public service, etc. or any of the many other options that are available to psychologists. Its easy to caught up thinking your options are either "professor" or "clinician" but there are a LOT more options available.

It depends what you are looking for. Generally speaking, working less means lower income, but I assume you know that since its kind of obvious (especially in private practice). I can think of many jobs were people CAN work less if they choose, its just a matter of how much income you are willing to sacrifice. If you want a six figure salary working 40 hour weeks....I won't say its impossible, but I will say you picked the wrong field if that's your goal If you're comfortable earning something more modest, you'll be fine.

 

[Cosmo75]

VA's for sure.

I second that. My internship will be at a VA. Hours are 8-4:30. And people generally bail at 4:30.

I worked for a while in the corporate world and put in some 80 hour weeks. You're right to not want to do that to yourself. It's not fun, you become cranky, and really don't like your job (at least I didn't). I think the fundamental question becomes what's more important, my success (and perhaps money I make) or my quality of life and mental well being? We can get wrapped up on succeeding and it takes over our priorities. So 45 hours turns into 50...then 55....you get the idea. I think it also depends on what you want to do when you're done. Private practice may afford you more flexibility with how much you work, but how much you work depends on how much you make. If you're on faculty, there's pressure to secure grant funding and publish, perhaps on top of seeing patients. I'd ask around to gauge what various positions tend to require.

I think, though, no matter what position you decide to take that your ability to say "no" and not over-extend yourself is key. Setting precedents early of how much you'll take on is very important. If you dig in early and commit yourself to a certain # of hours per week you're comfortable with then people will understand that's how you operate. Unfortunately our society is a bit warped with how much we expect people to work. Then a lot of people complain about how much they hate their job It's a vicious cycle. But ultimately it's up to us to say work isn't my entire life and actually do something else.

 

[Anon15]

I am going to have to disagree. If you are only clinical, no research, then yes. But if you are say mainly research you work much more that 40 hours a week.

 

[psy86]

Thanks for your thoughts, guys.

Anon15's impression is similar to my own-- I have never encountered any psychologists working in research who work anything close to a 40-hour week, even after tenure. The fact that I've never met any doesn't mean they aren't out there, obviously, but I think at most institutions the culture prohibits working less.

Which brings me to Cosmo75's comments about the importance of personally setting limits and not over-extending yourself. That's a crucial point and definitely something I'm learning to work on. I do think, though, that it needs to be a combination of the right setting and personally holding your ground-- obviously, not much limit-setting can be done on the tenure track, for example.

I appreciate the fact that you guys didn't treat this question as crazy or unreasonable! As Cosmo75 suggested, for me my quality of life is more important to me than maxing out on income.

 

[Ollie123]

Have to disagree.

I think if you want the TYPICAL research career (e.g. tenure track professor in a university or hospital) you'll have little choice but to work > 40 hours a week.

However there are positions like research scientist/project director/etc. (everyone seems to have different titles for these so yours may not match up). These generally involve being hired off one or more of someone else's grants and are pure research jobs (or combined research/clinical for treatment studies) but can carry a much lighter workload. The downside is that you aren't doing your own stuff and a failed grant app basically means no pay until it goes through. Have to be careful too - depending on the grant they certainly COULD involve more hours.

I think its a great option for people that want to be involved in research but don't want 60 hour weeks