[JanisErdmanis]

Yeah, I have seen many of my colleagues to feel ashamed to take all vacation time (around 28 workdays in a year) to go home or on vacation. It sometimes felt like unarticulated competition who takes less. Perhaps, it can explained by insecurity that your name is going to be taken off the paper you are coauthoring with others.

I guess in your situation the supervisors were present in taking care of your self motivation and checking your commitment to your PhD when having informal conversations. Also, it sounds you were in control of your PhD project and could set up goals and strategy achieving them yourself.

I am curios, in what field did you do your PhD?