A week from now it will be a holiday here in the United States and that means most of us will be with family and friends eating massive quantities of comfort food. Growing up in Kansas, I typically found that Thanksgiving meant cold weather and it wasn’t uncommon to have snow. My first Thanksgiving in Arizona was held outdoors which was a great change. Since then I’ve had the chance to enjoy it on a beach in Maui, in the freezing cold and darkness of Alaska and even among the revelry in Las Vegas. While each experience was different, the idea of being with our family and friends was the same. I hope each and every one of you has a great holiday!

For some businesses, the holidays are crazy busy. Retail stores are a perfect example. On the other side, service businesses are often quiet around the holidays. I use times like to work on special projects since I know it can be quiet around the office. For example, I installed Windows 8.1 on one of our office computers over the Thanksgiving holiday last year. It wasn’t a task that required a lot of my time. I’d start an installer and then get back to something else. Most importantly, it didn’t disrupt business in any way.

This year I don’t think I’ll have a project like that, but I’ll probably put in a little time on some new Web sites to be launched in the near future. Not only do I have a work project, I’ll also probably try to get a few things crossed off my never-ending to-do list at home.

I bring up my process to get you thinking a bit about what tasks you might do in the days when your business is slow. Loyal readers know that I’m a huge proponent of backing up your computers regularly. If you are not doing it or doing it very infrequently, maybe that downtime is the perfect occasion to put a better plan in place. Of for those of you who “never have the time” to learn some new software tricks, spend an hour or two learning during your business downtime.