tl;dr: Engineers should aim for ~80% utilization rather than constantly grinding tickets, because high-impact work (unblocking deals, mitigating incidents, shipping critical features) is time-dependent and requires available capacity to notice and seize. Staying "loose" makes you visible to managers for important assignments, reduces stress-induced mistakes, and preserves energy for the few times a year when genuine all-out effort pays off. Deliberately avoid glue work, uncompensated backchannel requests, and premature work on unstable requirements—doing nothing is often the optimal move.