In one embodiment, a computing device identifies a portion of a display object to pre-generate. The device may monitor a thread to identify the next upcoming window of idle time (i.e., the next opportunity when the thread will be idle for a minimum period of time). The device may add one or more selected pre-generation tasks to a message queue for execution by the thread during the window. The device may execute the one or more selected pre-generation tasks in the message queue by pre-generating at least one selected element of a display object with content for a portion of the content layout, and then return the display object.