The author argues that engineers should target around 80% utilization—avoiding nonstop ticket grinding—to keep bandwidth for time-sensitive, high-impact tasks like unblocking deals or incident mitigation. By deliberately doing “nothing” during low-pressure periods and pushing back on non-prioritized work, you stay alert for the right opportunities and reduce stress-driven mistakes.

• Target ~80% utilization instead of nonstop ticket-grinding, keeping 20% of your day free to catch rare, high-impact moments (unblocking a deal, flipping the right flag to avert an incident).
• Looking "too busy" makes managers route around you; staying visibly available makes them think of you first for critical work.
• Treating every task as an emergency burns you out before real emergencies hit—slowing down (especially on-call) prevents rash, situation-worsening changes.
• Decline unprioritized glue work, backchannel favors, and shifting specs—absorbing them just masks organizational gaps and invites more unpaid work.