Back Burner

My friend DH and I were talking about how often we “put things on the back burner”. We always have so many projects going at once, and we can’t pay equal attention to all of them. So a few things have to be moved to the back. Unfortunately, some things get left on the back burner so long that they get burned.

The problem with the back burner is that it gives us the illusion that we are still attending to it. We imagine that whatever we put back there is simmering slowly, and all we need to do is occasionally stir it and keep an eye on it. However, if we have too many things cooking at once, it is inevitable that one of them will be scorched.

Here are some things that I routinely leave on my back burner: Personal care, health, sleep, paper work, chores I dislike, people that annoy me, and anything I can’t reach easily. (This includes literal things like cleaning windows, ceiling fans, vents, and things on top shelves, as well as figurative things beyond my grasp like future goals and dreams.)

How do we prevent parts of our lives from getting burned? We have to routinely rotate our priorities. There are only a few spots upfront, and we have to intentionally move things from the back of our priority list to the front. This means that some of our favorite projects will need to take their turn on the back burner.