Get It In On Time - Proposal Production

It is a long-running tradition of the academia industry, to spend hours in preparation for the proposal, submitting thousands of dollars for research costs. Universities are also known to give out huge grants as an incentive for proposals with ample and meticulously detailed data. However, this report from University of Michigan and University of Illinois reveals that nearly half (48%) of all proposals across multiple industries and disciplines are not accepted by their corresponding institutions in six months or less. In fact, the study found that only 41% had been accepted within the 6 month time frame - meaning almost half were not deemed worthy enough by their institutions to be put up for consideration. To be more precise, the average time it takes to get approved is 22.5 days, while many of the proposals submitted were rejected after a period spanning a year and a half.

What really irks me here is how the universities themselves manage to pull off this feat. They give out contracts to students based on the presumption that they will be able to find results and ideas on which their universities can base future research proposals. When the money finally trickles into their bank accounts, I am sure that these young researchers and students have only one thing in mind - or rather in hand - which is money. In order for them to get paid, they need results which match those stated in their proposal contracts. It is a very corrupt system which I sincerely believe needs to be looked into. After all, students like us are struggling enough to make ends meet.

How can we be expected to produce results in a short period of time when we typically have huge chunks of our funding taken out before they even reach our hands? We have quarterly taxes, work-related expenses and other mandatory payments which limit the amount of money we can actually spend on the project. Without an adequate budget and long-term financial aid, how can you expect us to create results at the rate which you do? Here is where one may ask why I didn't just sign up for research at a more lenient institution. In fact, after my previous position as a research assistant at an elite university, I was offered a summer internship position at yet another university in a different field. I eagerly accepted the offer and made plans to move out of the country. However, once I got to the airport, I had second thoughts about moving to this particular area of the world after reading all the negative reviews left by other researchers and by myself. I even considered returning back home but decided to give it another shot.

Like many researchers who experience these difficulties from time to time, my first step was contacting my contacts within academia and asking them for advice on how I could improve my proposal writing skills and find a more lenient institution by which I could submit it for consideration. Isn't it ironic that everyone around me advised me to contact contacts within academia? This is a vicious cycle which needs to be broken. If the universities don't give us enough time to submit results, we need to resort to unconventional methods.

It was through this process that I realized how important it is for researchers and students alike, to have skills which are practical enough for use during a period of urgency. Without any prior knowledge of how I can speed up the proposal writing process, I began by brainstorming ways in which I could increase my productivity and efficiency. The first thing I thought of was reducing my sleep time and more importantly, waking up earlier than usual. I found that I had a habit of getting only 5 to 6 hours of sleep every night. This was definitely going to affect my productivity at work and also, if I would be able to submit a proposal in time.

While I was doing research for an article on how to wake up early, a friend recommended me this app called F.lux . It is a device that changes the screen's color temperature so that it is more comfortable for people who have difficulty sleeping at night due to light pollution, artificial lights, or blue wavelengths of light emitted by screens and monitors. I removed the app from my phone since I knew that 80% of my day-to-day activities are done using a computer, so I no longer needed the device. The only problem was that since I had to use my phone for business purposes and also during study sessions at university, it was a rather cumbersome task to remove the app without causing any setbacks in work. To solve this problem, I simply turned off all notification settings on my phone and monitored how things were going from then on.

With a new development in mind, I moved on to writing up an article which could boost my productivity and efficiency for all of those free writing sessions which are needed to produce results at an acceptable rate. The article I wrote was essentially a study of the different time management and organization methods employed by students and researchers alike. This was done by analyzing and taking notes from articles written by several respected bloggers in the past, along with conducting a social media survey for personal insights on how other independent researchers like myself manage their time.

I found that there were certain methods which some independent researchers preferred over others, but all of them had one common drawback which involved long application periods, or multiple apps which required payment and registration. In fact, during my own search for methods to increase productivity, I came across this article on how to boost your energy levels through sleeping patterns.

After I had finished writing the article, I decided to take one last step which would be noticing how other researchers reviewed their projects in the proposal system area. It was not long before I realized that most applicants were reviewing the system on a daily basis to make sure that they did not forget anything important. In addition, the cost of using this service was rather alarming. For this reason, I decided to start my research on how to speed up project review times on my own and make use of a free service which many applicants were using at this time - Upwork . It has been voted as one of the best websites for freelancers and business managers alike due to its low costs and extensive coverage in different industries.

Upwork is a website which is used to manage projects, such as writing proposals, reviewing online resumes and providing other services that require skills such as research, editing and data entry. This website was free to use and there was no fee for anyone who needed a new account. This was an ideal platform for someone like myself who wanted to speed up project review times and make use of user reviews on how other applicants gave their proposals some merit.

Here is how I speeded up my proposal writing process: First of all, I received an email from one of the associate professors at my university informing me that she had accepted the article I had written for publication in one of the highest quality scientific journals in the field.

Conclusion:

It was because of my knowledge and use of these methods that I was able to speed up my proposal writing process and reach out to a wider audience while increasing my educational reputation. The most important thing to note is that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to making an impact on their careers as researchers. These are two separate entities which should not be mixed together under any circumstances. Rather, we need to improve our strengths while working towards overcoming our weaknesses in order to maintain a certain level of productivity for any given period of time.