iterating an iterator by one step

[Skaperen]

i have a loop that is going through every file in a directory tree, doing a conversion on each, then moving that file to another directory tree. another process can add files to this directory tree at any time. so, each time this loop runs i need to get the the first file from the tree, waiting a minute if the tree is empty (until a stop flag exists in another location).

i have a generator that delivers every file in the tree when iterated.

does it make sense, that loop, to make a new generator each time and just call next() one time each instead of iterating through the directory tree?

something like:

while True:
   afile=next(mygen(thetree))
   ...

does it make sense to "iterate" an iterator just once like that?