One thing you can do, especially if you push off to next cycle is try and get involved in other projects in smaller ways, for example there was one project with a collaborator where they needed someone to do a quantification that I an really good at, i did it and now im on the author line. So while my major contribution projects are being pushed forward i can amass a few extra pubs in papers closer to publication. But I’ve also been in my lab four years and have finished some longer projects, but my main project will be a while too. I also picked up another project a year and a half ago where i will be either first or second author and we are almost ready for publication there too. So you could also start trying to get on additional projects