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Most of the time at my workplace, I work on projects that are on tight dead lines, stressed customers and a decent pace. I feel comfortable in these environements.

However, some times work pace slows down and even stops (which is natural I guess). My problem with slow downs is that I feel very awkward about the situation. Let's for the sake of simplicity say that I cannot really start innovation/enhancement projects on my own to keep busy (which would have been nice if it was possible).

How can I adapt to such "slow pace" periods quickly (before starting to climb the walls and annoy people)?

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    By spending more time on stack exchange.
    – MrFox
    May 28, 2013 at 16:33
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    But really, this is a very similar question minus the industry-specific stuff: workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/10645/…
    – MrFox
    May 28, 2013 at 16:52
  • @MrFox Ya, SE, of course. Read that question some time ago but it's more about looking busy when you are not. Given there is nothing beside to do (i.e. no cleaning, no process improvements or so that was suggested by that Q ). My question is more on how to ramp down the pace and adjust to a slow pace rathen than finding things to do.
    – Petter Nordlander
    May 28, 2013 at 17:44
  • Are you working as a developer?
    – Michael Zedeler
    May 28, 2013 at 18:31
  • @MichaelZedeler OP is a Integration Architect/Consultant
    – Michael Grubey
    May 28, 2013 at 18:37

1 Answer 1

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I'll assume that you're working within IT as @Michael Grubey wrote.

In that case, I've always claimed that working with software falls into three categories:

  • Analyzing, designing, writing and maintaining code.
  • Analyzing, designing, writing and maintaining tools that enhance the above.
  • Researching and seeking out new knowledge within IT (which enhances the two above).

Maybe you are not working on anything that fits the first bullet, but switching to any of the other two will just make you better at what you do, and thus more ready to tackle the next deadline. So you can't really be blamed that any such thing is a pet project - even if (when) you (hopefully) find it fun.

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  • Is it an advantage to be more ready to tackle the next deadline if having no work is something that the OP finds hard to handle?
    – Amy Blankenship
    May 29, 2013 at 1:47
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    My point is that there is never "no work".
    – Michael Zedeler
    May 29, 2013 at 7:13
  • Especially after a busy project, there must be a backlog of things that needed to make way for the high priority project.
    – Paul Hiemstra
    May 29, 2013 at 7:22

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