Most of us, at some time or the other, have been run off our feet and swamped with work. At that time, with deadlines looming and images of the guillotine appearing terrifyingly in the mind’s eye, haven’t we had to choose which tasks fall into the ‘immediate’, ‘next in line’ and ‘can wait’ categories? Usually, with what we think is great perspicacity, we do some quick mental arithmetic and dump as many tasks as possible of the ‘can wait’ onto the back burner, to be returned to at a later date.

Equally rapidly those ‘next in line’ things join them — but when we have the time to attend to those tasks on the back burner at long last, are they addressed systematically? Does the pile of newspaper cuttings — that were to give us inspiration or just get re-read because the topics were so interesting — ever get read?

Does the phone book that has been complicated beyond measure and would need a crack team of cipher specialists to decode, ever get sorted out? We have made a mess of it over the years, entering some numbers according to their first names (which we promptly forget) and others by their surnames (which we are equally capable of letting slip from our conscious memories); we have added bits of paper from the backs of envelopes, pencilled in cell phone numbers and other details, made notes to ourselves to search our own cell phones for those numbers — again saved in any way that suits us ... Does it get re-written to make it legible for us and for the rest of the family?

Does the cupboard into which three of our favourite, well-worn outfits vanished without a trace all those months ago, get cleared out? Or have we got by adequately without those clothes and no longer care whether we see them again?

It happens to many of us when we are involved in an all-consuming project, where we breathe, think and live for that one goal. And then, miraculously, it seems — though it has taken its time and its toll — that job is done. All the energy and effort we had put into it is suddenly available for re-direction (if it has not mysteriously leaked out like air does from a balloon, leaving us limp and lethargic and unable to focus).

We tell ourselves that we need to relax before we go to that back burner with all its simmering tasks awaiting our attention. We’re going to rediscover the joy of a morning dawdling over a book or a pile of laundry or a slow-cooked meal. We’re going to plan a day’s menu with close attention — and more important: Affection...

But soon we realise that all those shortcuts we had devised to complete household chores during the busy days have become the norm. Those do-it-yourself instructions that had been placed around the house have resulted in everyone doing it themselves.

It seems we have no choice. We cannot put it off any longer. Reluctantly we go to the back burner that by now screams for attention and we stare uncomprehendingly at that overflowing corner. Why hadn’t we put each item into slots with titles like ‘possible, not probable’, ‘highly unlikely’, ‘not a chance’, ‘someday’?

That is when we acknowledge what we should have long ago: Everything stewing on that crowded back burner went there because it was not meant to see the light of day ...

And in a split second, with one flick of the mind, everything is cast into a mental dustbin of what will never get done — and we make a clean start.

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.