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Today I’d like to write about the idiom, to put something “on the back burner”. We use this expression when we want to talk about postponing doing something. The postponement happens usually because we feel the activity is less important than other things we have to do, and therefore it can be delayed. The activity can also be delayed because we feel it’s not possible to do it at the moment. Here are some example sentences using this idiom.

This new project is really important, so I have to put my current project on the back burner for a little while.

My boss wants me to put my research for the ABC project on the back burner because he wants to focus on the XYZ project.

I don’t have much money, so I’m going to put buying a car on the back burner for now.

This expression is often used in business situations, but not always. We sometimes use it to talk about personal plans, such as in my third example.

This expression comes from the idea of cooking something on a stove. In many western countries we have four elements, or burners, on our stoves. The ones closest to us when we’re cooking are the front burners and the ones farthest away are the back burners. If we’re cooking something that is more important we usually use the front burners but if something is less important, or will take longer to cook, it’s often put on the back burner of the stove.