Writing time aboard Amity Outpost is divided into two major blocks: missions and shore leave. Missions involve one or more central objectives and generally take place on Amity and associated the outpost, ships, planets, etc. Missions are generally six weeks in length, though this may vary!
Between each mission, the Amity crew has about two to three weeks of shore leave, though again this may vary. During shore leave, there is no central plot and no general objective (or at most, a low-key "routine" mission that stays in the background) and is instead a great time for character development, individual character subplots, and smaller "B-plot" type stories going all at once.
To use on-screen Trek examples, missions are plot-focused stories like "The Best of Both Worlds" (TNG), "Children of Time" (DS9), and "Timeless" (VOY). Shore leaves are akin to character-focused episodes like "Family" (TNG), "You Are Cordially Invited" (DS9), and "Someone to Watch Over Me" (VOY).
