There are two kinds of being overwhelmed. There’s the chaos that comes from having no systems, so everything is an emergency. That’s relatively easy to deal with. The more pernicious type of overwhelm happens when you actually commit to more than you can possibly do. Then, no matter what you try, you can never catch up.
My current Yahoo! HotJobs column discusses how to make sure you’re not fundamentally overcommitted. You can read my HotJobs column on how to stop overcommitting by clicking here.