Staying sane while writing and waiting

Writing a big grant application such as an ERC Starting Grant requires a lot: time, concentration, reading, re-reading, editing. All this while figuring out the practicalities — budget, salary levels, overhead, fieldwork costs, the ERC online submission platform and its quirks. It’s a demanding process, even when one has the privilege to concentrate on it fully; but for most of us, this process runs parallel to other work responsibilities, making it difficult to dedicate large chunks of uninterrupted time to writing the proposal.

I mentioned earlier that I was lucky with my teaching schedule and could dedicate some days to working at home on the proposal. However, sequestering yourself for days can also feel daunting and isolating. I noticed that a few things helped me embrace the process and even find space to enjoy it.

I really liked the opportunity to let my imagination loose. Whatever ambitious and grand ideas I could imagine for my project — I wrote them down without thinking, “this may not be very feasible,” before allowing myself to dream big. Some of them I actually included in the proposal, after considering how to make them more realistic. But I didn’t reject those big ideas from the start. This opportunity to imagine and create freely really uplifted and energized me while writing.

In an earlier post, I mentioned how important it is to seek feedback — it improves the quality of your thinking and writing. But what I didn’t mention there is that the process of seeking feedback also helped me connect and reconnect with people — old and new colleagues — and let them know that I was working on this proposal and on this topic. I also reached out to some potential partners for the project, using this as another opportunity to build or refresh connections.

I also mentioned my diagramming and mapping activities in a previous post — and again, they were useful tools, but I also simply enjoy the process (and stationery). Getting new markers and paper to organize my thoughts at home sparked joy and helped lighten the laborious process a bit.

For more on finding joy in academia (not necessarily via stationery), check out this great podcast from my colleagues at Utrecht University: Joy in Academia — Spotify link.

Even though writing the proposal is the most time-consuming part of the process, I wouldn’t say it’s the most mentally taxing. While writing, you have goals, deadlines, and purpose. For me, the hardest part came after the deadline — waiting for the results. The selection process has two stages, and it can take up to nine months between the submission deadline and the final decision. I was completely confused about the approximate dates when the first-stage decisions were expected and thought they would come a couple of months later than they actually did.

Since those (wrongly imagined) wait times were quite long, I decided to do my best to forget that I had turned in the application at all. Nothing makes me more anxious than waiting for something I have no control over, so I chose not to check any ERC-related forums or websites. The results of each stage would be posted on the submission platform, and I would receive an email — so there was no way I could miss it. This was my thinking, and I’m glad it was.

Eventually, I was surprised every time the results came in. In the spring, I received an invitation for the interview stage earlier than anticipated and was overjoyed, of course. After the interview (in June), I was convinced that the results wouldn’t come until August and was determined to forget about it until then. They arrived much earlier than expected, positively shocking me again.

Only after that did I look up whether there were any informal forums dedicated to the ERC process — and found that there was a very active one (I’m not going to link it; I wouldn’t have wanted to know about it until after the process was complete). Around announcement times, applicants would gather there to obsess over status changes in the ERC platform (which I ignored for the entire nine months), go on sleuthing adventures to collect and triangulate data from previous years, and apparently have fun supporting each other in a shared Google document used as both a data tracker and chat room. I’m sure some people find such activities supportive and soothing, but personally, they would drive me nuts. So I’m glad I had no idea about these communities until after the fact.

So, how to stay sane while waiting? My strategy: forget about it, go about your business, and focus on other things. There will be an email if there’s something important you need to know or do.