the.com/back burner

means A low-priority task or plan that's been deliberately set aside to deal with later, while more urgent things take precedence.

from Straight from the kitchen stove: the back burners run cooler than the front ones, so you shift a pot there to keep it simmering gently without watching it, while the front burners handle whatever needs active attention right now. The literal stovetop habit became kitchen shorthand by the mid-20th century, then jumped into offices and everyday speech as a way to say 'not now, but not forgotten' — a pot left to simmer on low heat instead of one actively cooking.