When you have a lot of projects and tasks it can be nice to separate what is currently actionable/relevant and what you want to do "later".
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This is exactly what the Backburner strategy can help you with. 

Turning on the backburner strategy separates your Master List into two separate parts:

The Backburner has the same category structure as your regular Master List.

You can toggle between your regular Master List and the Backburner with the pot icon at the top right in your Master List or via the keyboard shortcut "B".

The Backburner has a slightly darker Background so you can distinguish it from the regular Master List. The header will also say "Backburner" instead of "Master List"

Plus, all the tasks and projects have a "stop icon" underneath the title to mark this task as "on the Backburner".

While you are in the Backburner, you can create tasks and projects like normal. Anything that gets created in the Backburner stays there until you "activate" it.

There are multiple ways you can send items to the Backburner:

In this example any task or project that is given one of these labels:

is automatically sent to the Backburner and stays there as long as it has that label. 

You can pick existing labels and turn them into "Backburner labels" or create new labels for this purpose right in the strategy setting.

If you have the "Edit Settings" menu added to your hover button menu or the right-click menu, you can open it and click on the Backburner button at the top to send the item to the Backburner:

You can add the "Send to Backburner" button to your hover button menu, right-click menu, or both.

Once you are ready to start working on a project or task, you can "activate" it, which will move the item to your regular Master List.

To activate an item, click on the "Edit Settings" button and then click the circle icon.

If you sent an item to the Backburner through a designated label, removing that label will move the item to the regular Master List.

If you are using the Backburner strategy and Smart Lists make sure to exclude the Backburner items from any Smart Lists where you don't want to see them. There is a specific Backburner filter in the Smart List settings.

The backburner also plays an important role with start dates (e.g. don't work on this before December 1st) and dependencies (e.g. only work on this project after project X is finished). Any item that is not "ready for action" yet based on these parameters will live in the Backburner and automatically get moved out of the Backburner when the time is right.

Please note that Marvin's UI has changed a lot over the years, but the logic behind using the backburner strategy has remained the same.