The Benefits of Boredom at the Firm
By Jeremy Clopton
June is often treated as a breather in accounting firms. And in some ways, it should be. After the intensity of tax season, spring deadlines, long days, and late nights, June can feel unusually quiet.
There are still deadlines. Estimated tax payments, benefit plan audits, and summer year-end work don’t disappear. But compared with March, April, September, or October, June usually has fewer firmwide, all-hands-on-deck pressure points.
That doesn’t make June slow season.
It makes June development season.
That distinction matters. “Slow” sounds like something to fill or waste. Development is something to use. Firms don’t get their best thinking, innovation, or long-term performance by keeping everyone at peak pace all year.
Constant Speed has a Cost
Accounting firms know what overwork looks like. Standards, filings, audits, advisory projects, and staffing constraints all create pressure.
Research on professional service firms suggests periods of overwork and rapid pace can have long-term effects on culture if left unaddressed. After 159 in-depth interviews across global professional service firms, researchers Ioana Lupu and Shanming Liu found that extreme hours persist because people match themselves to a “relentless organizational tempo” shaped by timekeeping, advancement systems, and expectations of constant availability.
That matters for firm leaders. It means burnout doesn’t happen only because of busy season or poor time management. It happens because the firm’s operating rhythm teaches people that faster, busier, and more available are better.
After months of urgency, the firm’s nervous system doesn’t automatically reset. Leaders have to reset it.
Boredom Isn't Always a Problem
Downtime can feel uncomfortable in firms used to measuring value in billable hours, completed returns, issued financials, and client deliverables. A lighter calendar can almost feel suspicious.
But boredom and space aren’t the enemy of productivity. They may be part of what makes better thinking possible.
In a study by the University of Lancashire, participants completed boring tasks before a creativity exercise. Those assigned the most boring task, reading the phone book, scored the highest on the creative task afterward. Letting their minds wander helped jump-start brainstorming.
That doesn’t mean firms should bore staff on purpose. Nobody needs a mandatory hour studying the phone book.
But it does challenge the assumption that every open pocket of time should be filled with another meeting, initiative, or “quick” internal project. When the brain isn’t pushed from task to task, it has room to connect ideas.
Slower Thinking = Better Strategy
This ability to connect ideas and think through processes can also lead to better decision-making.
In an HBR piece, Mark Chussil describes a pricing-strategy case study with executives, consultants, professors, and students. Those who made quick, confident decisions often dismissed the search for alternatives. Those who reached conclusions more slowly were more likely to find a solution that worked long term.
That has real implications for CPA firm leadership. The most important decisions rarely have obvious answers. Which clients should the firm stop serving? Which niches deserve investment? Which staff are ready for more responsibility? Which services need to be redesigned? Which technology is creating leverage, and which technology is creating noise?
Those answers don’t improve when leaders make them in the heat of the moment. They improve when leaders have enough space to sit with uncertainty and find a better path forward.
Summer gives firms a rare chance to slow the conversation down enough to think clearly.
Slower Periods Build Capacity
Busy season is where firms prove current capacity.
Development season is where firms build future capacity.
That includes technical training, process improvement, coaching, client segmentation, technology cleanup, billing reviews, role clarity, and leadership development. It also includes quieter growth, such as giving staff time to think through what worked, what broke, and what should change before the next deadline cycle.
The best June question isn’t, “How can we keep everyone busy?”
The better question is, “What needs attention now so the firm is healthier, sharper, and more prepared later?”
That question changes the month’s posture. A staff member with capacity can be developed instead of simply being assigned more work. A manager with breathing room can coach rather than only review. A partner with a lighter meeting load can think strategically rather than just react.
Downtime Needs Direction
There is nuance to the benefits of boredom. While some boredom can support rest, recovery, creativity, innovation, and personal growth. Managed poorly, it can also lead to dissatisfaction, risky decisions, or disengagement.
That is the leadership opportunity this summer. Not all boredom is useful. Drifting and frustration aren’t the goal. Unstructured downtime can become disengagement, scrolling, or low-energy busywork. But with the right leadership, this “slow season” becomes space for reflection, skill-building, relationship-building, and creativity. Those are development assets.
Downtime has to be led.
If it is, summer can become one of the most strategic times of the year.
Commit to Development Season
Firms that use this summer well will define what development looks like.
That might mean blocking time for CPE while staff have the bandwidth to absorb it. It might mean asking each department to identify one process that made busy season harder than necessary. It might mean giving managers dedicated coaching time with seniors, having partners review client fit before extension season ramps up, or giving people permission to rest without treating that rest as a reward for exhaustion.
This is not soft. It is operational.
Don’t let overwork become embedded in your system, and don’t let frustration or busywork take its place.
June is a key culture moment at any firm. Decide what matters to your firm and let the work reflect it.
What are you building this summer?
