Election season often provides a slowdown or even a halt to legislative bodies' activity and productivity. This tendency seems highest during presidential election years. Not surprisingly, it also appears to be more prevalent at the federal congressional level than it is at the state level. But government relations professionals can continue to show their value to the association by using the hiatus as an opportunity to revisit, assess, and adjust their organization's strategic GR priorities, goals, and activities. Here are six ways to do just that.

Assess the past year. Take a look at the organization's strategic plan, and refresh yourself on the goals and objectives relevant to your role and function. Take this time to both record accomplishments and recognize shortfalls—and then recalibrate. You might also document changes in the political environment that might require a realignment of resources.

Retain your regulatory focus. While legislative activity may come to a virtual standstill, rule-making activities might actually accelerate, creating opportunities and/or threats to your industry or profession.

Review and plan out content. This is a great time to review the materials that you are using to communicate with your multiple audiences. Make sure all public-facing materials are current, and you should also update legislator scorecards and issue briefings. Evaluate what content, issues and messages are still relevant for member education and engagement, especially regarding the status of grassroots materials and activations.

Government relations and advocacy professionals can continue to show their value to the association by using the legislative hiatus as an opportunity to revisit, assess, and adjust the organization's strategic government relations priorities, goals, and activities.

In conjunction with the organization's communications staff or consultants, review and refine your message and identify relevant content needs. Create an editorial calendar, and then get that content assigned. Your editorial calendar should extend, at least, through the 2017 presidential inauguration.

Plan the next two years. Planning around the two-year cycle enables GR professionals—at both the federal and state levels—to better allocate and manage their resources. Using an actual two-year calendar, go ahead and plot out your 2017 and 2018 dates. Make sure to include internal planning and budgeting meetings, organizational and industry meetings, board meetings, annual conference dates, Hill Days, and holidays. As more information becomes available after the elections, add session dates, recess weeks, and other key events to the calendar. In each month, you can also start adding the major to do's that you are anticipating.

Get organized. Catch up on emails and reading. Work through those piles on your desk, shelves, and floor. Weed out what's in your file drawers. Clean up your computer desktop and file folders too. File needed materials and archive or discard others, making sure to comply with your association's record-retention policies. Prioritize and address those items that were moved to the back burner.

Network and nurture relationships. Highly effective associations collaborate cross functionally, so take this slower season as a chance to nurture those internal relationships. Grab lunch or coffee with colleagues in other departments, learn about what they're doing, and brainstorm ideas to enhance one another's efforts to achieve results. Also, seek out time with your supervisor to catch up, review your performance goals and progress, share insights, and discuss next steps.

You should schedule time with external audiences too. If Congress is in recess, head to the Hill and visit with key staff members. While your issues might be a part of your conversation, you should also use this opportunity to converse more informally about favorite football teams and travel experiences, for instance, as a way of getting to know one another better.

While you're at it, go ahead and reach out to other organizations that might have an interest in your priority issues. Get a deeper sense of their perspectives. These kinds of relationships can be invaluable for coalition building. And that talented consultant that you keep running into at events? Go ahead and book a meeting. You might need to engage their services at some point, and it's always better to stockpile these sorts of contacts and information so you can act quickly when a time-sensitive need arises.

Completing these items will help you and your association be ready for the government relations challenges that lie ahead.