Why Can't I Get a Handle on This?

I know I've blogged about this before, but I feel like I'm drowning here, and could use some good input. Here's the question: How do I balance my writing life (i.e. working on works in progress) versus answering emails, facebooking, other social networking, creating interviews, and so forth?

I thought I had it figured out: Forget the emails and write first. The problem with that is that I know those emails are there, waiting for me. It's always in the back of my mind, nagging at me. So, I go clear emails, but there's always something that I have to do with some of the emails, thus I have to do those things before I can move on.

Of course, a lot of times I just leave those emails because I don't want to work on them, but work on stuff I HAVE to do...blog interviews, most of the time. Then, every time I'm getting internal pressure about emails, and I go to the emails, then SLAM - there are all those emails waiting for me that I've left, nagging at me, jiggling my conscience.

A lot of the writers I know are very, very busy and seem to thrive on it. I'm not that way. I have to make sure I have enough down time, away from the computer, to have hopes of getting anything done. So, I have to be careful about what I commit to.

And somewhere in the back of my mind is the knowing that I have a few problems with my work-in-progress that I haven't figured out yet, so that when I do get back to it, I have to go in problem-solving mode. Who said that writing is all fun? Certainly not any authors I know!

So what do you think? How can I solve these problems? I'd love to hear your story and suggestions.