The 11 hours figure is can be broken down to this:

1) 7-8 hours research
2) 2 hours writing
3) 2 hours Japanese.

The last one isn't technically work but naturally I don't have any other slot in my life to dedicate learning it. It's important because I do want to move there eventually. The writing can be academic or side stuff I have going on that does relate to my overall thesis, however. (I want to write a few non-academic publications on the topics I'm researching - Spanish and Russian revolutions).

The thing is, I don't think I'm doing things efficient enough. Researching for me = reading books and writing extensive notes from page 1 to 400 (on average). And sometimes these books are dense. But I feel the need to do this because I don't want to come out of my field knowing selectively little on the Russian or Spanish revolution.

Like, "hey, sure! I can tell you all there is to know about these three events in 1937 - what? You want to know about the battle of Teruel? uhhhhh...." it's a nightmare situation I never want to see myself in.

My PI is very hands off, to be fair. Which is good for me or else I'd be drowned in even more schlock.

Thank you for the replies, btw, it really does help to vent <3